The life and letters of Lady Hester Stanhope

THE LIFE

AND LETTERS OF

LADY HESTER STANHOPE

*b

THE LIFE

AND LETTERS OF

LADY HESTER STANHOPE

BY HER NIECE

THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND

WITH A PREFATORY NOTE BY
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY, K.G., K.T.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

I9H * fcV>

^>

b /^

M

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PREFACE

IT would seem from the variety of publications con-
cerning her that there is still a flicker of public
interest with regard to Lady Hester Stanhope, and
so it has seemed well to members of her family
that the book written about her by my mother,
and privately circulated, should now be given to the
public as the authoritative biography of this strange
woman.

ROSEBERY.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PACK

EARLY DAYS — CHEVENING — BURTON PYNSENT — BATH —
D AWLISH — TOUR ABROAD — TURIN — NAPLES — TON-

NINGEN . . . I

1776—1803

CHAPTER II

RETURN HOME — WALMER CASTLE — YORK PLACE — SIR
WILLIAM NAPIER — MONTAGU SQUARE — BUILTH —
GLEN IRFON . . . . . . • 47

1803 — 1810

CHAPTER III

DEPARTURE FROM ENGLAND — MALTA — ATHENS— THER-
APIA — CONSTANTINOPLE — BRUSA — SHIPWRECK —
RHODES — ALEXANDRIA — CAIRO — JERUSALEM — DAYR-
EL-KAMAR — DAMASCUS . .... 93

1810 — 1812

CHAPTER IV

DAMASCUS — HAMAR — PALMYRA — LATAKIA — MAR ELIAS —

MISHMUSHY — BAALBEC — ACRE — JAFFA . . . 134

1812 — 1816
vii

viii CONTENTS

CHAPTER V

PAGE

MAR ELIAS — MR. SILK BUCKINGHAM — ANTIOCH — M.
DIDOT — DJOUN — "THE BABYLONIAN PRINCESS" —
MISHMUSHY 182

1816—1823

CHAPTER VI

DJOUN — CAPTAIN YORKE, R.N. — DR. MERYON . .228

1823—1830

CHAPTER VII

DJOUN — 'M. DE LAMARTINE — MR. KINGLAKE — DR.

MERYON 272

1830—1838

CHAPTER VIII

PRINCE PUCKLER MUSKAU — DJOUN 346

1838

CHAPTER IX

DJOUN — MAXIMILIAN, DUKE OF BAVARIA— DEATH AND

BURIAL , . 392

1838—1839

CHAPTER X
CONCLUSION • 43^

INDEX . . . .459

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE RESIDENCE OF LADY HESTER STANHOPE AT DJOUN Frontispiece
THE GRAVE OF LADY HESTER STANHOPE . . . Facing p. 428

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF
LADY HESTER STANHOPE

CHAPTER I

EARLY DAYS — CHEVENING — BURTON PYNSENT — BATH — DAW-
LISH — TOUR ABROAD — TURIN — NAPLES — TONNINGEN

1776-1803

LADY HESTER STANHOPE, the eldest of the three children
of my grandfather, Charles third Earl Stanhope's first
marriage, was born in 1776. Her mother, Lady
Hester Pitt, a daughter of the great Earl of Chatham,
who is said to have been Mr. Pitt's favourite sister,
died when she was only four years old, leaving behind
her the memory of a singularly beautiful and perfect
character. " She was," writes Lord Haddington (her
husband's cousin), " a woman rarely to be met with ;
wise, temperate, and prudent ; by nature cheerful,
without levity ; a warm friend, and free from all the
petty vices that attend little minds." Had she grown
up under the care and guidance of such a mother,
Lady Hester might have been a far different person,
and her great natural gifts been far otherwise em-
ployed. To her and her baby sisters the loss was
incalculable.

My grandfather is represented as plunged in the
wildest despair at his wife's death. Yet in little more
than six months he had married her cousin, Louisa
Grenville,1 and the new Lady Mahon did not commend
herself to her little step-daughters. She was a worthy

1 The daughter of Lady Chatham's younger brother, the Hon.
Henry Grenville, Governor of Barbadoes and Ambassador to the
Porte, who was uncle to the first Marquis of Buckingham.

2 "CITIZEN STANHOPE" [CH. i

and well-meaning woman ; but, as I remember her,
stiff and frigid, with a chilling, conventional manner.
They never became fond of her, and she never seems
to have gained any influence over them — least of all
over Lady Hester. As for their father, he apparently
did not even attempt to do so ; he merely gave his
orders, and took care they were obeyed. They saw
very little of him, for he was the busiest of men—
always hard at work in his laboratory or study,
engrossed with politics, and taking an active part in
public life. All agree that he was a very fine speaker ;
but he was too loud and vehement in his delivery, and
indulged in the un-English habit of gesticulation.1
We read of " Mahon out-roaring torrents in their
course " in the fervour and flow of his declamation,
and how

The Don Quixote of the nation
Beats his own windmill in gesticulation.

But I am quoting his detractors. To his admirers —
and they were numerous and enthusiastic — he was
another Ludlow or Algernon Sydney. Bred up in
Geneva as a Republican, he developed into a Jacobin
during the French Revolution, and stood in open
antagonism to all his brother Peers. This, however,
was very far from causing him concern. He was a
good fighter, and rather enjoyed it. On the first
question upon which he divided the House of Lords,
he did not find a single supporter ; but he was so

Eroud of this " glorious minority of one " that he de-
ghted in repeating the experience. On one of these
occasions, a friend who stood by him was severely
taken to task. "Why," he said, "you spoiled that
division ! " When first presented at Court, he had
electrified the polite world by appearing with his
black hair unpowdered ; and in 1792 he emulated his
French friends by discarding, with his title, every
emblem and attribute of rank. Even the coronets over
the iron gates at Chevening were taken down, and he
was styled Citizen Stanhope. Later in life, I believe,
his opinions were modified ; he dropped the citizen-
ship, and replaced the coronets.

1 M. Van de Weyer, so long Belgian Minister in London, told me
that when endeavouring to assimilate himself to English ways, the
first thing he had to learn was to keep his hands quiet. " I used to
put them under the table and say to them, ' You are to lie there ! ' "

1776-1803] MECHANICAL SKILL 2

But it is not by his political vagaries that my grand-
father will be remembered ; his fame rests on far
higher grounds. He was illustrious as a man of
science, and one of the greatest inventive geniuses of
his time. The first little craft ever propelled by steam
was, I believe,1 built by him, and launched on the
piece of water in his grounds at Chevening. He
offered his invention to the Admiralty, and an " anti-
navigator" ship on his plan was built and tried; but
the Lords decided that these trials were conclusive
against steam navigation. He was nowise daunted.
" Some of your Lordships now sitting here," he said
in the House of Lords, " will live to see steamships
crossing the Atlantic." He was received with con-
tempt and derision, and pronounced to be " a little
madder than usual." Yet he himself very nearly saw
the fulfilment of this visionary prophecy, for the first
steamer crossed the "great herring pond" in 1818,
only two years after his death. The propeller he used
was the screw, which, though then discarded, has now
almost entirely superseded Fulton's paddle-boxes.

I cannot even attempt to enumerate all his other
inventions, for their name is legion. One is amazed
at the versatility of his genius. There was the cal-
culating machine which so long preceded Babbage's ;
the Stanhope printing press (from which all sub-
sequent presses have been more or less copied) ; the
Stanhope lens for testing the skins of fever patients ;
the plan for securing buildings from lightning by
means of " the returning stroke," contained in his
Treatise on Electricity ; a new method of tuning musical
instruments ; the reasoning machine for exposing the
sophistry of false logic, which occupied him even on
his death-bed, &c., &c.2 One very valuable discovery
was his system of rendering buildings fireproof, on
the well-known principle that combustion can never
take place where the air is excluded. To illustrate
this in practice he had a fire-proof wooden house

1 I speak under correction, as I cannot give the exact date ; but it
was in 1793 that, his invention being perfected, he offered "the im-
portant plan, invented by myself, for navigating ships of the largest
size without any wind, and even against wind and waves," to the
Government. It had cost him no less than twenty years of labour,
and very considerable sums of money.

1 His " Demonstrator, or Logical Machine," was described by the
Rev. R. Harley to the British Association in 1878.

4 LADY HESTER'S CHILDHOOD [CH. i

built, surrounded it with a quantity of combustible
material, invited a party of friends to assemble on the
upper floor, and then set fire to the combustibles.
The flames rose around to the height of 87 feet, yet
the friends imprisoned within this circle of fire (who
must have had their misgivings) did not suffer the
slightest inconvenience. — Philosophical Transactions for
1778.

We, his descendants, are justly, and I may say
exceedingly, proud of his genius and achievements,
and yet humbly thankful that we were not called
upon to live under his roof, for, ardently as he
advocated liberty and enfranchisement abroad, he was
the sternest of autocrats at home. His rule was
absolute, his word law — the law of the Medes and
Persians, from which there was no appeal — and he
enforced the most implicit and unquestioning obedi-
ence. Lady Hester, who did not know what fear
meant, was perhaps the only one of his children not
afraid of him, and by her own account, the one he
liked the best.1 The others all stood more or less in
awe and dread of him, and as they grew up, one and
all escaped from their unhappy home. In the end
even my much-enduring grandmother found her posi-
tion untenable.

It was in this ungenial atmosphere that Lady Hester
was brought up ; and, unhappily for her, brought up
without the judicious care and training of which she,
above all others, stood in need. She was, as I have
already said, highly gifted. She possessed an intellect
of rare scope and power, an almost intuitive quickness
of perception, a vivid and poetic imagination, in-
exhaustible energy, dauntless courage, a keen sense of
humour, and a brilliant and ready wit. Her tongue
was, in truth, a sharp-edged sword, and gained her
many enemies ; but she could be eloquent and per-
suasive as well as trenchant. With these she had
noble qualities, both of the head and heart. She was
honourable and loyal, despising and detesting all
meanness, littleness, and deceit ; generous to a fault,
divinely charitable, honest and high-minded, abhorring
baseness of every sort or kind, a staunch friend, and

1 " I could always govern my father better than anybody, because
I could bear his oddities with more patience, and could joke him into
things plain sense and argument would have failed in."

1776-1803] EARLY DAYS 5

an enthusiastic champion. Above all, she had a kind
and tenderly compassionate heart, that warmed to
every tale of sorrow or distress. Like her eldest
brother — and this was one point of resemblance be-
tween them — she was full of pity and sympathy for
the ill-used or oppressed ; and whoever, in her opinion,
had suffered wrong or failed to obtain his rights, was
sure of finding an ardent advocate and protector in
her. If she loved power she used it mainly on behalf
of others.

But with all these great capabilities there were
formidable contending elements. She had much of
her father's imperious and impetuous temper, with his
indomitable and inflexible will. She was excessively
proud, not a little vain, and above all wilful and
domineering, and if a staunch friend, an unrelenting
foe. She had the most boundless self-confidence, and
honestly believed herself born to command. Even as
a little child she was always, as her cousin Binning
phrased it, " playing the empress-queen," and fond as
she was of her sisters, yet delighted in exercising a
kind of supremacy over them. " My sister Lucy was
prettier than I was, and Griselda more clever. . . .
Lucy's disposition was sweet, and her temper excel-
lent ; she was like a Madonna. Griselda was other-
wise, and always for making her authority felt. But
I, even when I was only a girl, obtained and exercised,
I can't tell how, a sort of command over them. They
never came to me, when I was in my room, without
sending first to know whether I would see them." —
Memoirs of Lady Hester Stanhope, as related by herself
in conversations with her Physician. London, 1845.

She must have been a terribly difficult pupil to deal
with, and the governesses, whose task it was to con-
trol and correct her, no doubt had many bitter experi-
ences. I always think of them with compassion, and
when, in the tone of an outraged princess, she speaks
of the " eternal warfare " she has vowed against all
Swiss and French governesses, I feel inclined to take
their side. At all events, they were failures. Although
hers was a character that more especially called for
discipline and direction, she was suffered to grow up
with very little of either, having acquired neither
reserve nor self-control. In fact, the teaching was all
the other way, for she early learned to despise and

6 LADY HESTER'S MEMOIRS [CH. i

cast to the winds all the conventionalities of life.
" Her early education," as Lord Stratford truly re-
marked, "had much to do with her eccentricities. Her
father, believing in manual labour, had set her regu-
larly to tend turkeys on a common." — Life of Stratford
Canning. London, 1888.

With the exception of this characteristic anecdote,
all we know of Lady Hester's childhood is from her
conversations with Dr. Meryon in Syria, many long
years afterwards. Unfortunately, her memory had
then become confused and wholly unreliable ; and my
father, in annotating the doctor's book, marked one of
the stories as incorrect, as well as the absurd account
of her grandmother's housekeeping at Chevening.1
The discarded story was one that has been often
quoted ; how, when " Citizen Stanhope " thought it
consistent to put down his carriage and horses, she

fpt a pair of stilts, and paraded in the mud before
is windows, till she induced him to buy another
equipage.

I now proceed with the extracts from the Memoirs,
which I have endeavoured to arrange chronologically.

11 1 was always, as I am now, full of activity, from
my infancy. At two years old, I made a little hat.
You know there was a kind of straw hat with the
crown taken out, and in its stead a piece of satin was
put in, all puffed out. Well, I made myself a hat like
that, and it was thought such a thing for a child of
two years to do, that my grandpapa had a little paper
box made for it, and had it ticketed with the day of the
month and my age.

" Just before the French Revolution broke out, the
Ambassador from Paris to the English Court was
Count d'Adhemar. This nobleman had some influence
on my fate as far as regarded my wish to go abroad,

1 This was perhaps hardly worth contradicting. She tells of the
puddings that it required two men to carry ; barons of beef on the
same magnificent scale ; of the rigid etiquette observed by the house-
hold ; of the scissors that Lady Stanhope kept for cutting off the
prohibited curls of the housemaids ; the rod with which she chastised
them, &c.

1776-1803] CHEVENING 7

which, however, I was not able to gratify until many
years afterwards. I was but seven or eight years old
when I saw him j1 and when he came by invitation to
pay a visit to my papa at Chevening, there was such
a fuss with the fine footmen with feathers in their
hats, and the Count's bows and French manners, and
I know not what, that, a short time afterwards, when
I was sent to Hastings with the governess and my
sisters, nothing would satisfy me but I must go and
see what sort of a place France was. So I got into a
boat one day unobserved, that was floating close to
the beach, let loose the rope myself, and off I went.
Yes, Doctor, I literally pushed a boat off, and meant
to go, as I thought, to France. Did you ever hear of
such a mad scheme ?

" But I was tired of all those around me, who, to all
my questions, invariably answered, ' My dear, that is
not proper for you to know ' ; or, ' You must not talk
about such things till you are older,' and the like. So
I held my tongue ; but I made up for it by treasuring
up everything I heard or saw.

" How well I remember what I was made to suffer
when I was young! and that's the reason I have
sworn eternal warfare against Swiss and French
governesses. Nature forms us in a certain manner,
both inwardly and outwardly, and it is in vain to
attempt to alter it. One governess at Chevening had
our backs pinched in by boards that were drawn tight
with all the force the maid could use ; and as for me,
they would have squeezed me to the size of a puny
Miss — a thing impossible ! My instep, by nature so
high that a little kitten could walk under the sole of
my foot, they used to bend down in order to flatten

1 She was thirteen in 1789, and surely more than two years old
when she made her hat.

8 TRIAL OF WARREN HASTINGS [CH. i

it, although that is one of the things that shows my
high breeding. Nature, Doctor, makes us one way,
and man is always trying to fashion us in another.

" But nature was entirely out of the question with
us ; we were left to the governesses. Lady Stanhope
got up at 10 o'clock, went out, and then returned to be
dressed, if in London, by the hairdresser ; and there
were only two in London, both of them Frenchmen,
who could dress her. Then she went out to dinner,
and from dinner to the Opera, and from the Opera to
parties, seldom returning until just before daylight.
Lord Stanhope was engaged in his philosophical pur-
suits ; and thus we children saw neither the one nor
the other. Lucy used to say that if she had met her
step-mother in the streets she should not have known
her. Why, my father once followed to our own door
in London a woman who happened to drop her glove,
which he picked up. It was our governess ; but, as
he had never seen her in the house, he did not know
her in the street. . . .

" I can recollect, when I was ten or twelve years
old, going to Hastings' trial. My garter somehow
came off, and was picked up by Lord Grey, then a
young man. At this hour, as if it were before me in
a picture, I can see before me his handsome, but very
pale face, his broad forehead ; his corbeau coat, with
cut-steel buttons; his white satin waistcoat and
breeches; and the buckles in his shoes. He saw
from whom the garter fell ; but, observing my con-
fusion, did not wish to increase it, and with infinite
delicacy gave the garter to the person who sat there
to serve tea and coffee. . . .

" Mr. Pitt never liked Griselda ; and she stood no
better in the opinion of my father, who bore with
Lucy—ah ! just in this way. He would say to her,

1776-1803] CHEVENING 9

to get rid of her, ' Now, papa is going to study, so
you may go to your room '; then, when the door was
shut, he would turn to me, ' Now, we must talk a little
philosophy,' and then, with his two legs stuck upon
the sides of the grate, he would begin. ' Well, well,'
he would cry, after I had talked a little, ' that is not
bad reasoning, but the basis is bad.'

" My father always checked my propensity to finery
in dress. If any of us happened to look better than
usual in a particular hat or frock, he was sure to have
it put away the next day, and to have something
coarse substituted in its place."

The three girls were allowed to go out hunting, to
Lady Hester's keen delight and enjoyment. She was
never so happy as on horseback, and became a very
fine horsewoman, which, in after years, greatly con-
tributed to her popularity with the Arab tribes.

" I remember, when Colonel Shadwell commanded
the district, that one day in a pelting shower of rain
he was riding up Madamscourt Hill as I was crossing
at the bottom, going home towards Chevening. I
saw Colonel Shadwell's groom's horse about a couple
of hundred yards from me, and, struck with its beauty,
I turned up the hill, resolving to pass them and get a
good look at it. I accordingly quickened my pace,
and in going by gave a good look at the horse, then
at the groom, then at the master, who was on a sorry
nag. The Colonel eyed me as I passed, and I, taking
advantage of a low part in the hedge, put my horse to
it, leaped over, and disappeared in an instant. The
Colonel found out who I was, and afterwards made
such a fuss at the mess about my equestrian powers
that nothing could be like it. I was the toast there
every day.

11 Nobody ever saw much of me until Lord Romney's

io LORD ROMNEY'S REVIEW [CH. i

review. I was obliged to play a trick on my father to
get there. I pretended the day before that I wanted
to pay a visit to the Miss Crumps " (or some such
name), " and then went from their house to Lord
Romney's. Though all the gentry of Kent were there,
my father never knew, or was supposed to have
known, that I had been there. The King took great
notice of me. I dined with him — that is, what was
called dining with him, but at an adjoining table.
Lord and Lady Romney served the King and Queen,
and gentlemen waited on us. Upton changed my
plate, and he did it very well. Doctor, dining with
royalty, as Lord Melbourne does now, was not
so common formerly. I never dined with the King
but twice— once at Lord Romney's at an adjoining
table, and once afterwards at his own table. Oh !
what wry faces there were among the courtiers ! Mr.
Pitt was very much pleased at the reception I met
with. The King took great notice of me, and, I
believe, always liked me personally. Whenever I was
talking to the Dukes he was sure to come towards us.
1 Where is she ? ' he would cry ; ' where is she ? I
hear them laugh, and where they are laughing I must
go too.' Then, as he came nearer, he would observe,
' If you have anything to finish, I won't come yet — I'll
come in a quarter of an hour.' When he was going
away from Lord Romney's he wanted to put me bod-
kin between himself and the Queen ; and when the
Queen had got into the carriage, he said to her, ' My
dear, Lady Hester is going to ride bodkin with us. I
am going to take her away from Democracy Hall.'
But the old Queen observed, in rather a prim manner,
that I ' had not got my maid with me, and that it
would be inconvenient to go at such a short notice.'
So I remained."

1776-1803] CHEVENING— BURTON PYNSENT n

She appears to have taken the offer quite seriously.

" It was at that review that I was talking to some
officers, and something led to my saying, ' I can't bear
men who are governed by their wives, as Sir A. H. is.
A woman of sense, even if she did govern her husband,
would not let it be seen ; it is odious, in my opinion.'
And I went on in this strain, whilst poor Sir A. him-
self, whom I did not know, but had only heard spoken
of, was standing by all the time. I saw a dreadful
consternation in the bystanders ; but I went on. At
last some one — taking commiseration on him, I sup-
pose— said, ' Lady Hester, will you allow me to intro-
duce Sir A. H. to you, who is desirous of making
your acquaintance.' Sir A. very politely thanked me
for the advice I had given him, and I answered some-
thing about the regard my brother had for him ; and
there the matter ended."

I have not yet spoken of Lady Hester's brothers (or
rather half-brothers), my grandmother's three sons —
Philip Henry, my father, who succeeded as fourth
Earl, Charles, and James. They were never sent
either to school or to college, but brought up with
their sisters at home and taught by their father's
secretary. This was Mr. Joyce, the author of Scientific
Dialogues. But their studies were interrupted by nis
trial for high treason, for which he was arrested in my
grandfather's house. Lady Hester was devoted to
these brothers, and rendered signal service to the
eldest by planning his escape from his painful position
at home. She and her sisters had first set the
example.

Of these the youngest and fairest, Lady Lucy, a
beautiful girl then barely sixteen, had been married
by her father in 1796 to a country surgeon practising
in the neighbourhood. Lady Griselda left home in
the same year, taking refuge in a cottage at Walmer,
lent to her by Mr. Pitt. Four years afterwards she
became the wife of John Tekell, an officer in the army.
Lady Hester remained at Chevening till 1800, when

iz PHILIP LORD MAHON [CH.

she went to live with her grandmother, Lady Chatham,
at Burton Pynsent, in Somersetshire.

My grandfather offered no opposition to his
daughters' departures, though, when Lady Griselda
left, he was heard to compare himself to Lear, quoting
the line (certainly applicable), " I never gave thee
kingdoms." But he kept strict watch and ward over
his eldest son, all the stricter as he approached his
majority, when he would have power to cut off the
entail, and make fresh arrangements. He had, as I
have already said, never been sent either to school or
college, but kept immured at home, without a single
advantage, or chance of improving himself, " in a
situation " (to quote his own words) " of all others the
most odious and oppressive." He bitterly deplored
the loss of the wasted years, passing away unheeded
over his head, that should have been employed in
fitting him to take his place in the world. At length,
in 1801, he determined to attempt to shake off the
yoke, having then just entered his twentieth year. He
asked to be sent to college, and made proposals
regarding the entail,1 but they were unacceptable, and
he found, to his dismay, that his father's object was to
obtain the power of disposing of the estate. This
would have meant his own ruin. In his distress, he
opened his heart to Lady Hester, who eagerly espoused
his cause, vowed she would extricate him from his
cruel position, and loyally kept her word. She alone
contrived and effected his escape from his father's
house, who, " now," as she writes in triumph, "may
make Chevening frightful by destroying the timber,
but, without Mahon's consent, cannot further injure
the estate." In a letter to Lord Glastonbury (to be
shown to all the other Grenville cousins), she describes
how she accomplished it.

" Money, you know, was a very essential article ;
that has been liberally supplied by Sir Francis Bur-
dett, though he chose to be ignorant of the plan it
was to be adopted for, and gave it into the hands of a
third person. Mr. Jackson (the diplomatic Jackson)
got Mahon's letters of credit made out and provided

1 These proposals had been drawn out for him by Mr. Pitt.

1776-1803] BURTON PYNSENT 13

him with a passport. He is gone abroad, in order
to be placed at a foreign university at Erlang, under
the care of Professor Breyer, a man of great ability,
and most extensive knowledge. Mr. J., who, from once
residing there, is perfectly acquainted with their
characters, has furnished him with letters of particular
recommendation not only to the Professor, but to the
first people of the place, and is on terms of great
friendship with the Margravine,1 who, I understand, is
the best sort of woman in the world, and keeps a
little court. Therefore, Mahon will not only have
information within his reach, but enjoy the best
society of that place. I must tell you Mahon has
taken a feigned name, which was judged more
prudent, for many reasons, than his bearing his own.
Nothing could be more handsome than the manner in
which Mr. Jackson has acted in this business, not
only in the friendship he has shown Mahon by the
great interest he has taken in his concerns, but by
the advice and assistance he has afforded him in the
most minute things, which was particularly fortunate,
as Mahon was perfectly ignorant of the world, and
everything which relates to travelling ; but, however,
with Mr. J.'s directions, he has got on wonderfully
well. Mahon has a man with him, in capacity of a
servant, whose fidelity I can rely on ; this man, with
directions from me, accomplished Mahon's escape
from Chevening most astonishingly, for, though he
was pursued in a few hours, no tidings could be had,
and till this moment they have never been able to
trace him one step. Fearing what the possible effects
and mortification might have upon the female members
of the family he had deserted, as soon as I knew he
was safe out of the country, I wrote to my father's
1 Of Brandenburg-Baireuth, who resided at Erlangen.

H LORD MAHON'S "ESCAPE" [CH. 1

lawyer to desire he would inform them that Mahon
was gone abroad, that he was in good hands, and
nothing was to be apprehended for his personal
safety ; but to make it plain to them that no further
intelligence in future should ever be had of me con-
cerning him ; yet, should they be at a loss to send him
any letter, if they would forward it to me I would
take care it reached him safe. ... I have received the
most satisfactory accounts of my brother ; the last,
dated the 3rd of March, from Hamburgh ; the descrip-
tion he gives of his journey is admirable. His
astonishment, his happiness, and gratitude to his
friends, is expressed so naturally and with so much
feeling, it is quite delightful. Dear fellow ! if he had
been ten times my own brother I could not have been
more anxious, more interested about him. I wish
poor dear Mrs. Grenville1 was but alive, and read
those letters I have referred to. Charming, charming,
incomparable Mahon ! But I must not depart from
business. I am sure it will be unnecessary, my dear
Lord, for me to point out to you how essential it is
that the place of Mahon's abode, and the names of his
deliverers, should be kept a profound secret ; of course
I mean merely confided to his own family. On their
goodness of mind I rely in his meeting with indulgence,
and that they will be pleased at finding a young man,
brought up both with the worst public and private
principles, still adhering to those which have so much
distinguished various branches of the family he be-
longs to."

She further promised that Lord Chatham should
forward to him a letter from her brother, containing
" a formal statement of what passed between him
and his father before he left Chevening. I think it

1 His grandmother.

1776-1803] BURTON PYNSENT 15

will be unnecessary for me, either to enter upon a
justification of conduct which requires none, or to
anticipate your opinion upon the subject, particularly
when you have read the letter I allude to, which does
equal credit to heart and understanding."

A copy of this statement was sent to her relations
in Scotland,1 to whom she also wrote ; and Lord Had-
dington, in his reply, takes the opportunity of giving
her some excellent advice.

Lord Haddington to Lady Hester

" I am truly happy that your brother is in all proba-
bility comfortably and advantageously settled, and I
have no doubt he will prove everything his friends
can wish, both in public and private life. . . . Your
grandmother, Lady Stanhope, has not written to me
since your brother's departure, nor I to her. She
was in the habit of writing to me from time to time
kind letters of enquiry, but at no time confiden-
tially. . . . Your dear mother, of whom you can have
but a faint remembrance, if at all ... was a woman
rarely to be met with, wise, temperate, and prudent, by
nature cheerful and without levity, a warm friend, and
free from all the petty vices that attend little minds.
I am sure if she could now communicate her ideas, her
advice to you would be to act steadily, without fear,
when you had well considered what was to be done ;
to do all the good within your reach in the present
circumstances of your family, and when it should seem
helpless and out of reach, to preserve as much as
possible a prudent silence to all but tried friends. . . ."

Lady Hester to Lord Haddington

" I think I am not like Grandmama Stanhope, as I
have troubled you sufficiently with my family affairs.

1 Her grandfather, Philip, second Earl, had married Grizel Hamil-
ton, sister of Thomas, seventh Earl of Haddington, and a grand-
daughter of the famous Lady Grizel Baillie.

1 6 "THE LOGICIAN" [CH. i

Lady Chatham desires I will name her kindly to you.
She has taken away my letter, or rather expressed a
wish to keep it, from the character it contains of my
dear mother. You have no idea what a sweet, amiable
creature my cousin Harriet Eliot * is, and what friends
we are."

, She was not so fond of receiving advice as of
giving it, but she appreciated Lord Haddington's.
" I have lately," she tells Mr. Jackson, " received the
prettiest and most sensible letter in the world from
Lord Haddington " ; then, after quoting it, she adds,
" Vastly good advice, I think ; and I am vastly glad
he takes things thus."

One of her principal objects had been to guard the
two younger brothers who remained in thraldom from
any suspicion of having abetted or known of my
father's escape. " For if some precautions are not
taken," she writes, " they will be flogged to death to
make them confess what they are really ignorant of."
Her father's outburst of fury at finding himself tricked,
proved, however, less formidable than she had anti-
cipated. " The ' Logician ' " (her nickname for him)
" often has said that from the hour I was born I had
been a stranger to fear. I certainly felt no fear when
he held a knife to my throat — only pity for the arm
that held it ; but this was a sort of feeling I should
rather not again experience ; therefore the understand-
ing that he remains quiet, and employs others, is a
great satisfaction to me. Otherwise I should be in
some dread of seeing him here and going through
some of those scenes which I have unfortunately so
often before witnessed. But I would rather stand a
dozen of them than that his suspicions should fall
right." He expressed sorrow as well as anger, and
my poor grandmother was in deep affliction.

Lady Hester forwarded a copy of the statement she
had sent to Lord Glastonbury (see p. 12) to the family
lawyer, Mr. Murray, for his inspection, saying that
her brother had written it—

1 The daughter of her mother's sister, Lady Harriet Pitt, the wife
of the Honourable Edward Eliot, eldest son of Lord Eliot of St.
Germans. She died in child-bed in 1786.

1776-1803] CHEVENING— BURTON PYNSENT 17

" To show to those persons I may wish his conduct to
appear to in a proper light.1 . . . Now let me ask,
what could he have done, in this case, better than
what he has ? Reasoning was in vain ! Had he con-
tinued at Chevening, this was his prospect, to have
continued to live the unhappy and unprofitable life he
has borne for so many years ; when he came of age, to
be persecuted to cut off the entail, which, had he still
refused to comply with, his life would have been made
more wretched than ever ; at one-and-twenty to have
only begun to have thought of shifting for himself, and
applying to his friends. From want of instruction he
could not have been put forward in the world ; this
would have been a great disadvantage, which will not
now exist. As to having agreed to his father's pro-
posals respecting the entail, no person could dream of
his doing an act so replete with folly, indeed, I may
say madness, as to ruin himself by giving his father
unlimited power over his future property, which he
would most undoubtedly have disposed of in the most
absurd and unwarrantable manner ; and certainly
have taken out of the country, as I have frequently
heard him declare he would do, if he could obtain the
power. . . . How distressing it is for each branch of
his family in turn to take up arms against him in their
own defence! Bad as things have been, I have cer-
tainly no reason to complain ; on the contrary, to be
thankful that they have turned out as they have, all
things considered. Lucy provided for, Mr. Tekell's
situation so much improved by his late employment,2
Mahon in the hands of friends, who must be powerful,
as you may suppose, to have taken upon their hands
a youth without a shilling. Yet all this does not pre-

1 I have found no copy of this statement.

2 In both cases through the kindness of Mr. Pitt.

3

1 8 MR. T. J. JACKSON [CH. i

vent a wish existing that my father, for his own sake,
would think better of his conduct, because he does not
know in what manner it may be investigated when
Mahon comes of age. How much it will become the
topic of conversation in the world, and what disgrace
it will for ever reflect upon him! Besides, by his mode
of proceeding, he is entirely depriving himself of all
domestic comfort. . . . Lord Lansdowne, his great
friend, has taken decided part against him. He not
only made every offer of protection to my brother,
when I named to him at Bath his escape, but has since
written to me to desire I would assure Mahon of his
earnest good wishes, and to say that if his name could
be of any use to him (while abroad) it was at his com-
mand, as well as any other service he could possibly
render him at any time. Lord L., though he truly pities
my father, sees things in a right light, and knows that
opposing his conduct is the only likely way of inducing
him to change it, and make him see he is wrong."

Lady Hester was deeply grateful to Mr. Jackson for
all he had done to help her brother, who personally
was an entire stranger to him ; and she kept up a
close correspondence with this kind and valued friend
for the next eight years. He preserved her letters,
and in 1862 his widow handed them over to my
brother. I will give some extracts from them :

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

" BENNET STREET, BATH,

" January, 1801

" The Duke of York, Colonels Fitzgerald and Taylor,
the Duchess, Lady Ann Smith, and my old friend and
great favourite Cullen (Charles), are arrived. I expect
the latter every moment. I wish you were here now.
Bath might, perhaps, turn out as pleasant as it did
five years ago. My present physician says he hopes
I shall be able to go back to Burton in a fortnight ;

1776-1803] BATH— BURTON PYNSENT 19

that I must avoid being in town till late in the spring,
and till I am perfectly recovered. I have, therefore,
taken the determination to divert my thoughts by
travelling. I shall stay a short time at Burton, then
go into Northamptonshire, and then to Newmarket
for the Spring Meeting, which is the first week in
April. All this change of scene, and the weight (which
more than thanks to you) will be taken off my mind,
will, I trust, set me quite up again, if I am intended in
future to be good for anything."

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

" BATH,

" February 2nd, 1801.

" I have been out to-day with two delightful men.
One of them added his wife to the party, which was
an improvement, as she is a sweet creature. You can-
not wonder her husband is a favourite, when he sells
three-year-old colts for 300 guineas, and that he thinks
favourably of me ; for, poor creature as I am, I rode
a horse of his over a new-made hedge, a down leap
into the road, which quite won his heart. The other
is a clergyman, one of the first sportsmen in England,
and the dear friend of the chiefs of the Melton Hunt ;
and is so gentleman-like, so good-natured and agree-
able, that he is a prime favourite, and among the very
few men I have seen most likely to make a woman
happy. His future wife might be jealous if she heard
me say this ; if so, she is narrow-minded and unworthy

of him."

" BURTON PYNSENT,

"March %th, 1801.

" 1 must thank you for your last long letter, and say
how much pleasure it gives me that you think thus
highly of Mahon. The praises of my horse I formerly
greatly preferred to my own ; but now my whole
ambition is centred in my brother's turning out well.

20 LADY HESTER'S "FIRST SORROW" [CH. i

" There is one thing I must ask your opinion about.
In a letter a few days ago from Lady Campbell, she
says : ' Ramsay is at Vienna ' ; and she hopes, as
Mahon is on the Continent, they will meet. Now do
you think Ramsay can be of any use or advantage to
Mahon ? Because I would write to him if you thought
so, for Ramsay is one of my oldest friends. Grand-
mama Stanhope brought up his sisters before I was
born ; and I believe when Ramsay was sent to school,
it was the first sorrow I ever felt, because he was my
playfellow, and, though so much older, condescended
to play with a little creature. He first went to school
at Sevenoaks, then at Westminster, and then to
college ; but during my grandfather's life Chevening
was always his home. When he went into the army he
ceased to want one, which, all things considered, was
rather lucky. For his poor horses, which still remained
there, occasionally at least, were not treated with the
same kindness everything which belonged to him once
experienced. . . . My sisters tell me that her Ladyship
has been writing lamentable accounts to her cousin,
Sir H. Hawley, and that he is rather of her side ; but
this I care nothing about. . . . Lady Stanhope has
also tried Sir J. Banks, but I was even with her, being
very much acquainted with a friend of his. Through
him Sir J. was set quite right on the subject, which he
is now greatly interested in. I never in the course of
my life was upon the look-out for money, but in this
one instance. Lady Stanhope, from Sir J. Banks having
no children, is his presumptive heir. But he may
leave his fortune to whom he pleases. My great wish
is that my darling Charles, his godson, should come
in for a share of his riches, and therefore it is important
he should know their situation. A second brother,
without a profession, little application, but the finest

1776-1803] BURTON PYNSENT 21

mind, the most noble and generous spirit in the world,
money would be well bestowed upon. Charles is by
nature my favourite, though he has the least ability of
the three, but a degree of openness and good-nature
which wins every heart, and an air of nobility his
quizzical education cannot destroy ; for in the black-
smith's forge ' he looks like a gentleman. He is
beyond everything popular in the county, and two
years ago, with a little of my assistance, the farmers
kept him a small pack of harriers, which the good
people knew nothing of. ... I feel tolerably well pro-
tected from the rioters, since a detachment of the i5th
Light Dragoons are come to our assistance. Two or
three corps of Quizzes are going to be broke for their
gallant conduct of late. Expense to no purpose from
beginning to end, except to make people laugh, that is
all the use they have ever been of."

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

"BURTON PYNSENT,

"March loth, 1801.

11 1 had much conversation with the Marquis" (of
Buckingham) " at Bath, and when I pretended to be
ignorant of Mahon's fate, he told me that if I could
possibly discover him, he requested I would offer
Mahon his protection, and tell him that under his roof
he should ever find a home. He said he would not
offer to be a mediator, because he knew that reasoning
was in vain, but that he would take any step I might
point out to him as likely to be serviceable. I thanked
him, and said all I believed he could do would be, in
case Lord S. should make any complaints to him, to
ask him if he had not some reproaches to make him-

1 My grandfather, in pursuance of his plan of education, had
apprenticed him to a blacksmith. James, I believe, was to have
been a shoemaker.

22 SIR FRANCIS BURDETT [CH. i

self, respecting his conduct to his son, that the step
he had taken was the natural consequence of it, and
that he had only himself to blame. That in order to
secure the affections of his other sons, he should
recommend to him a change in his conduct towards
them, or they might also follow their brother's
example ; and a great deal more of this sort of thing,
he promised to say. ... I wish Dumont would tell
George, for want of further information, what high
favour I am in with his Lordship, and that he had
employed a young artist to take my picture, which I
should have been betrayed into,1 had it not been for
my maid, who discovered the commission, which he
was much too full of, as well as the old Marquis's
nonsense, to keep to himself. He chose a happy
moment to have the likeness of a dying saint or
sinner. ... I have torn off part of Charles Baillie's
letter (enclosed) which talks of his children, and so
on, because you would laugh, and have no idea that
so handsome a man can be so domestic a creature."

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

"BURTON PVNSENT,

" March ijth, 1801.

" I am vastly sorry you have had so much trouble
about the money. As I have often said, I never could
discover but one fault in my friend's" (Sir Francis
Burdett) " character, compiled of a peculiar talent for
making jumbles, with a vast share of absence and
inattention. As for his brother" (William Jones Bur-
dett) "one had as well attempt to catch a bird upon
the wing; and as for writing to him, if a letter reaches
him in a week I think it a fortunate traveller, for it
will probably have been at fifty places, unless perad-
1 She had a rooted objection to sitting for her picture.

1776-1803] BURTON PYNSENT 23

venture it halted in the pocket of the elder, which
latterly has annoyed me so much that the last I wrote
to him was in form as large as a Secretary of State's
despatch, which I thought might prevent its being so
detained, as its companions would probably expel it
upon the system of equality. Now, what do you say
to my thus quizzing my best friends ? But after all
I have no doubt but that it was this talent which
originally made them such. Indeed, I am sure of it.
... A Genevese watchmaker is sure that he met
Mahon a fortnight ago in St. James Street. It is all
so good, so vastly good ! "

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

"BURTON PYNSENT,

"•March igth, 1801.

" Mahon says he bought a travelling carriage at
Cuxhaven for ten guineas, which is very strong and
convenient — a pretty sort of quiz it must be. He does
not like going so slow, not much above two miles an
hour. . . . Grandmama is quite delighted with the
account he gives of himself and of his happiness.
You have no idea of the terms of gratitude he ex-
presses towards his friends who have thus liberated
him. He is anxious to get to Erlang to pursue his
studies ; nothing, he adds, shall equal his application."

"BURTON PYNSENT,

" March loth, 1801.

"The Scotch clan have been all kindness and
civility; but my Marquis as yet outdoes them all. I
had such a letter from him when he returned me the
Cuxhaven letter" (from her brother), "first saying the
honour all this reflected upon Mahon, and contrived
to bring me in for a share of it, but how I cannot
exactly tell, for he does not know how I am concerned
in it ; but I suppose he has a shrewd guess, but that

24 RIOTS IN THE COUNTRY [CH. i

is neither here nor there. . . . Lord Glastonbury is
trustee,1 vastly clever, and vastly good, but has 10,000
fiddle-faddles and quirks, and I daresay is in an agony
for fear he should get into some scrape ; and besides,
he is not well, and is vastly nervous at this moment,
so much so that I have had a fine prose from him
about my health, and desiring me not to ride, for he
will take it into his head that it has half killed me,
when I was never so well in my life as when I rode
for years at least twenty miles a day, and often forty.

"Thank you very much for enquiring after me. I
am tolerable, but as Mr. Elwes would say, ' quite out
of condition'; and for me to attempt the dissipation
of London would be something like running a horse
that had not been in training, a vastly bad thing both
for the poor horse and the spectators. As for going
to balls to see my Lady Agnes,2 or to other charming
things, and not be the gayest of the gay, would be as
painful as impossible to me. It is not that I am either
vapourish or have a sulky fit upon me, but I wish to
see how things turn out before I think of amusement,
and upon their decision will greatly depend perhaps
how far I am capable of enjoying it."

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

"BURTON PYNSENT,

'•'"March 31 st, 1801.

" We have sad riotous doings here ; mobs every day
all round the country. The women are the worst ;
they put a rope about a farmer's neck a few days ago,
and threatened to tighten it if he did not instantly sign
a paper to promise to sell his corn at los. a bushel,
which of course he did, and so have many others.

1 Of my grandmother's marriage settlement.

* There are many allusions in the letters to this lady, with whom
Mr. Jackson was presumed to be in love.

1776-1803] BURTON PYNSENT 25

Certainly the farmers' conduct is shameful, and people
cannot starve ; but if the mob once begin to regulate
the price of provisions it will not stop there.

" My military spirit always despised as well as
opposed the Volunteer Associations : first, because
they were quizzical; and secondly, because I was
sure they would be useless, if not mischievous. The
first, hereabouts they have completely proved. Some
refused to act at all ; others wished to go over to the
mob, but were prevented and their arms taken from
them; this though was only a few individuals. But
the worst of all was a troop of Yeoman Cavalry, being
called out to quell a riot obeyed very readily ; but the
mob surrounded the Captain the moment they arrived
at the place of destination, and all the rest galloped
away ; and if it had not been for the regulars, and his
signing the paper they wished, I do not know what
would have become of the poor gentleman. Now, what
do you say to this ; and am I not extremely civil when
I know I am not addressing one of the delightful
loth Light Dragoons, though a Light Horseman? . . .

" Don't say bore another time, because what interests
you (though it might not please me) can never do that.
Nor can I see why public tranquillity should be so
nearly allied to private concerns, because the greater
row there is in the world the more people will be
wanted to set it all to rights again, and when it is not
play fools stand less chance of being employed. I
hope you admire this logical reasoning."

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

" BURTON PYNSENT,

" April I4//&, 1801.

" Mahon writes in high spirits. Says he is much
pleased with the Professor (who in fact is an excellent

26 BATTLE OF THE BALTIC [CH. i

creature, and having travelled a good deal is more a
man of the world than the generality of Professors),
that he was entered at the University and was forth-
with to begin his studies. He had been introduced
to the Margravine, and had dined with her. . . .

'' The Margravine writes me a long letter, and
begins with her benediction for having saved a young
plant (as she calls Mahon) from the infernal principles
of Jacobinism. She expresses herself in the highest
terms of approbation of him, and her surprise (she is
an admirable judge on this point) at the ease and
manliness of his address and manners. This surprise
originates, of course, in what I had told her of his
style of life at home. He seems to be quite familiar
in French, and promises a rapid progress in German.
The old lady concludes, ' Enfin, je vous promets que
nous en ferons un sujet utile et honnete.' "

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

" BURTON PYNSENT,

"April I4/A, 1 80 1.

" What glorious news ! * I think croaking will
soon be at an end. Poor Riou, what fun I once had
aboard his ship ! Peace to the souls of the heroes
who fell in battle. Drummond's trunks and boxes —
oh, excellent ! I hope Persia was of the party, detest-
able as they tell me. I hate him. He calls me ' Bac-
chante,' and is always quoting the Lord knows what.

" Thanks for your news.2 I have been going to be
married fifty times in my life; said to have been
married half as often, and run away with once. But

1 The Battle of the Baltic, fought on April 2nd, in which Lord
Nelson destroyed the Danish fleet.

1 Mr. Jackson had written from London : " In point of chat, we
hear only of a few marriages about to be, . . . and the last, not the
least, Lady Hester Stanhope to Mr. Methuen, junior, of Corsham.
You shall have my congratulations, but, upon Lord Lyttelton's plan,
when they become due."

1776-1803] BURTON PYNSENT— BROMLEY 27

provided I have my own way, the world may have
theirs and welcome. . . . How violent the Baronet "
(Burdett) " has been in the house lately ! Oh, fie ! he
wants a lecture."

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

" April igt/i, 1801.

" Oh ! delightful, charming ! this evening's post has
not only brought me your letter, but a volume from Mr.
Pitt. I did not tell you, but I had written to him a few
days ago, being rather tired of suspense ; 1 and he says
he received my letter and Mahon's at the same time.
Mr. Pitt speaks in the highest terms of approbation
of all that has been done, which pleases me mightily,
and gives me every assurance that both now and
hereafter he will do everything in his power for dear
Mahon. I was all sure of that; but still it pleases
me vastly to hear it repeated, and to know that he
has seen you, because things will go on well now. He
likewise appears to be so happy and well ; for he says
that what with the luxury of living with his friends
and the improvement in public affairs, his only appre-
hension will be that of growing too fat for horseman's
weight, at least as a companion in my rides. I cer-
tainly shall do much wiser to keep to my intention of
seeing a good deal of him this summer, than allow
myself to be hitched into the dissipation of a camp,
instead of enjoying his society, from which I shall
derive much more rational pleasure and more profit.
How instinct taught me to love this ' Great Man,' and
if I had not kept sight of him, at a distance, what
would have become of us all ? He means to come
here in the summer. ... I shall burn the letters
Mahon told me he should enclose for his Scotch

1 Regarding Mr. Pitt's opinion as to her brother's escape from
Chevening.

28 LORD HADDINGTON [CH. i

relations, except the one for Binning. He is a charm-
ing young man,1 though older than Mahon, a very
proper friend for him ; and I have very great regard
for his father and mother, the latter, sister to Lady
Jane Dundas. The two Baillies, not being of Mahon's
standing, though fine young men in themselves, will
never be companions for him, and I do not know it
would be altogether to his advantage, as they are —
at least George — dreadfully wild. Charles, since he
married, has thought better of it."

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

" WICKHAM, BROMLEY

(the house of her sister Lucy),

"June 2nd, 1801.

" I hardly expected to see you here, because I took
it for granted you were much engaged at this moment ;
yet as Sunday is rather an idle day, and knowing you
would not particularly regret your ride in the park,
I thought, had the weather been fine, you might
possibly have taken a gallop this way. . . . Should
anything particular occur in conversation with the
1 Great Man' on the morning. you receive this, which
at all presses you should be informed of, I will leave
a note for you as I go out of town. But I shall not
let you off without coming here before I depart for
the North (oh, charming, delightful scheme, better than
fifty balls), because you must see my beautiful sister.

"Sad weather for reviews. I wish the Prince would
wait till it was better. Suppose his horse should
slip up ! "

1 Afterwards, as Earl of Haddington, First Lord of the Admiralty,
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, etc. I knew him in his old age, and I,
too, thought him charming. He confided to me that his first love
had been his cousin Lucy Stanhope ; and that he had intended to
propose to her as soon as she was out of the schoolroom. But she
was married before she left it.

1776-1803] DAWLISH 29

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

"DAWLISH,

" October i8//;, 1801.

" I .shall not at this moment take a retrospective
view of Mahon's concerns, or of my own peregrina-
tions, but give you the piece of information I longed
to communicate, viz. : that I may perhaps see Mahon
before you. Mr. and Mrs. Egerton have only been
waiting till peace was made to go abroad, which they
now intend to do next May. They have 'asked me
to accompany them, and also for Mahon to join us for
as long or short a time as he may like. They propose
going through Germany and Switzerland, and to
winter at either Naples or Florence, and to take Paris
on f their iway home. They have not yet formally
announced their intention to their friends — old aunts,
&c., I mean — so I do not of course generally speak of
it. I hasten to tell you for this reason, that I may
have your candid opinion upon the advantage it would
be to Mahon, were he to join our party in Italy.
Should you think him better elsewhere, I would
gladly give up (happy as his society would make
me) any claims upon him ; but it strikes me, recom-
mended as my party would be through me, it would
be very advantageous to Mahon, for the only difference
would be that the niece, instead of the nephew, would
be the bearer of the credentials ' great men ' have to
bestow. Also, as Mr. and Mrs. E.'s plans depend
greatly upon me — I mean respecting the places they
visit — 1 shall form them a little according to yours,
for should you be appointed to reside in any place
we could possibly take in our tour, it would give me
peculiar satisfaction to visit your Court, and see you
in all your glory. . . . You will, perhaps, wonder at
my not having fixed upon more dashing persons for

30 THE KING AT WEYMOUTH [CH. i

companions. In that case we must all have dashed
away together ; in the present case I shall have perfect
liberty to act in all respects as is most pleasing to
myself, and in so doing be certain of pleasing them.
They want a companion, and I want a nominal
chaperone. Besides, they are excellent good people ;
she is very sensible, and he vastly good-natured, but
vastly shy, and not brilliant ; but, as I do not shine
through the medium of another person's husband,
that is of no consequence to me. ... I must tell you
I have been to Weymouth. The King was so gracious,
and made me a million of fine speeches upon my
conduct, &c. The Queen so civil; she waived my
not having been to Court, and asked me to join one
of her parties. I have made quite a friendship with
the Princess Mary, who I think quite unlike the others.
" I have not room to tell you of the military honours
I received at camp, and what a great General they
think me. A whole regiment saluted me (illegible)
eyes right. Officers' swords dropped. Oh, charming ! "

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

" DAWLISH,

'•'•October 31 j/, 1801.

"From my heart do I rejoice at your good fortune! l
Great as it is, it hardly equals your deserts. Glory
be to thee, oh Minister! but witness it we shall not.
It is impossible for my friends to leave this country
before May ; and as everything will appear dull after
Paris, that we mean to take the last. ... I must not,
cannot, take up your time further than thanking you
cordially for sparing a moment to communicate the
welcome intelligence to me. To hear from you often
will be out of the question, but I trust I shall now
1 His appointment as Minister at Berlin.

1776-1803] DAWLISH— LONDON 31

and then ; in which case you had better direct your
letters to me at Lord Chatham's, St. James's Square,
and they will be sent me, be I where I may, and do not
at least fail of sending me your proper direction, with
all your honours attached, for surely an '&c. &c.' can
never explain them all."

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson
" SEYMOUR STREET,

" February yd, 1802.

" I feel shocked at my own ingratitude ! Never
answered your last kind letter! I wrote to Mahon
in your strain, and enclosed a letter from higher
powers to the same effect. But since that time the
boys have talked of walking off to seek their fortunes
without a plan. Therefore, to prevent this, one has
been sent to sea, and the other has a commission,
which will be made public in a few days. He also
is going abroad. All has turned out wonderfully, but
I have been worried to death. The Duke " (of York)
" has behaved wonderfully. I will write you more
in full very shortly, when I feel I can breathe. I saw
them both, and I thought they would have devoured
me. The little one never shed a tear, but was off to his
ship the same night. The Captain charmed with him."

" SEYMOUR STREET,

"February i3/#, 1802.

"You will, I am sure, be happy to hear that all
goes on well. Charles has a commission in the
25th Foot, now at Gibraltar, and also he has a letter
from the Duke's Office to join immediately ; yet he
has leave to accompany me to Burton, as his health
is much injured; but I hope he will soon recover.
I heard to-day from James's Captain (a great friend
of mine); he says he never had a boy before in his
ship he was so fond of. They have made a dreadful
fuss at Chevening; but fear has prevented their

32 CHARLES STANHOPE [CH. i

stirring from that spot. Conceive my joy at having
Charles as my companion at Burton. Do write to
me, to wish me success in making him a good soldier.
Lord C." (Chatham) " says no general officer can do
it better than myself. This ' My Lord ' has for a
wonder exerted himself, and since Charles has had
his commission, he has taken him into his own house.
He looks in future to an Honble. Aide-de-camp. Inde-
pendent Honourables do not like to belittle better than
valets. ... If I may ask a question of you, how is Lord
Camelford ? I like him better than people do in general,
and am anxious about him, after the strange reports I
have heard ; but do not answer if you do not like it."

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

"BURTON PYNSENT,

" April 28M, 1802.

11 As I cannot, my dear friend, welcome your return
in person, I depute Charles to do it for me ; and at
the same time give him the opportunity of becoming
acquainted with one to whom his brother is indebted
for his present happiness ; which happiness being so
much connected with the general happiness of us all,
makes it really necessary that you should be bored
with our acknowledgments individually. I hope you
will allow Charles to see as much of you as he can
during his stay in town, I mean without interfering
with more important business. You will, I flatter
myself, not omit giving him your opinion and advice
on any subject on which it strikes you he requires
it. ... You will not find him well informed, like
Mahon ; but he has the noblest mind in the world,
and what is seldom united, the highest spirit, with the
reflection of a man twice his age.

" I shall be in town about the end of next month.
Remember, should you visit your mother at Bath, I

1776-1803] BURTON PYNSENT 33

shall take it quite ill if you do not come to see me
here, and visit the shades once frequented by my
illustrious Grandfather."

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson
"BURTON PYNSENT,

"May-i-jiti, 1802.

" I am anxious to talk to you of the dear boys, and
tell you of my growing passion for the Navy, and of
the happiness I have lately experienced in seeing the
little sailor. I am determined to think that this pro-
fession requires a man to be handsome, elegant, and
agreeable ; to have genius, as well as understanding.
Otherwise, I should regret that those qualities are
likely not to bear their true value, in that sort of life
this darling little fellow is about to lead. If I were
to be mast-headed this moment, I could not tell which
of the three I feel the most interest in ; but certainly
the future Admiral is the only one calculated to
interest a stranger. The attentions several Captains
have shown him, without knowing who he is, suffi-
ciently prove this. The first long voyage he takes,
he will bear his own name, which he has not hitherto
done, neither do any part of the family. . . . Charlie's
concerns I take for granted you are well acquainted
with from himself. I long to hear your opinion of
him ; I know it will be a candid one, therefore will
have the greater weight. He has really, I think, one
of the most honourable of characters, but not the
parts of either of his brothers. With his strong
affections, and determined spirit, brilliancy perhaps
(all things considered), he is as well without. The
very humble idea he has of himself, and the situation
of his family, so much affecting his mind, and indeed
often extremely oppressing his spirits, makes me
always anxious to a degree to encourage him, and
4

34 PRINCE WILLIAM [CH. i

not suffer him either to feel his misfortunes, or the
contrast which might be drawn between him and his
younger brother. One thing about him disturbs me
a good deal, he could write hardly legibly when he
came from Chevening ; but now his hand is tolerable,
yet he cannot spell three words. I know a Member
of the House of Commons who has very fine abilities,
but whose education was much neglected early in life,
and who writes at this moment most abominably. A
friend of his has often told me that having tried in
vain to improve himself, he had now given up the
point, and seldom or ever wrote but to those whose
indulgence he could rely on. Now should this in
future be Charles's case, it would be a shocking thing,
and particularly as he will be, as early as possible,
made an Aide-de-camp. Do pray give him a little
advice on the subject ; and put him in the best way
of improving himself; and persuade him that con-
fessing his ignorance at a time when it may be
accounted for, is better than hereafter remaining a
dunce. To be sure I need not talk in this way,
because three out of the six have the same fault, more
or less ; but still it does not prevent my seeing the con-
sequence it is to a man in particular to write well." l

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

"BURTON PYNSENT,

'•'•June 13/7* (1802).

" And pray who gave you leave to suppose Prince
William 2 was not admired by me ? Ask Ebrington
and Hamilton if your ideas are just? Let me then
inform you, I think your friend a very amiable young
man, remarkably well-intentioned, acting like a sen-
sible man, though in appearance not a brilliant one :

1 Charles certainly profited by these admonitions, for all the letters
of his that I have seen are well written, and perfectly well spelt.
» Afterwards William IV., "the Sailor King."

1776-1803] BURTON PYNSENT 35

and I do flatter myself, had your most excellent plan
been put in execution, he would have taken a little
care of the dear midshipman, not even so much on
your account, as for the sake of a cause which he used
formerly to profess himself interested in. Now you
see I can be saucy when you displease me by forming
a premature judgment upon my opinions. However,
I ought to feel flattered with the knowledge of their
agreeing in one respect ; your thinking Dalton a
proper man to take care of my little fellow, proves
you must think not ill of wild men, and that you
cannot be astonished at my thinking so well of Jack,1
who, with Dalton, thinks it, I suppose, praiseworthy
to break all hearts which come in his way. Let me
think what I may of Dalton, it would even require
more courage than that which I am possessed of, to
dare to give my opinion were it an unfavourable one,
because it is high treason in Kent not to be actually
smitten with your friend. However, of treason I
may be acquitted, and only found guilty of sedition,
for venturing at one period of my life to like a then
constant companion of Dalton's better than himself;
but most probably his vanity never led him to make
this discovery, and therefore I shall be able to get
rid of any indictment upon this head, which it may
please my countrywomen to bring against me. Now
I have waged war a little against you, I must come to
something like business. ... I certainly (from my
friends being detained by their business in Cheshire)
shall not be able to reach town till the very end of
July. Should you be hurried away, if you do not
visit me here, I shall not see you at all, and that
will be inexpressibly provoking ; in short, a thing that
must not be ; for I have a million of things to say about
1 Her cousin, Captain Murray, R.N.

36 TOUR ON THE CONTINENT [CH. i

Mahon, because Mr. Pitt did hint at sending him to
whatever Court you went to, to finish his education ;
and I want to talk about all this, and many other things.
" Lady Chatham desires me to say, that if you can
excuse indisposition preventing her receiving you her-
self, she shall be very happy to invite you to Burton if
you can come. . . . Dear Grandmama's health having
undergone so great a change since I arrived in the
winter, has been at times the source not only of un-
easiness, but of melancholy reflection, as when I once
part with her, I have little chance of ever seeing her
again. You will see her, only I cannot promise you
much of her society. ... I have made a fine hurried
scribble of this, for when returning home from walk-
ing, I met with a protege of Grandmama's, who is just
made a Post Captain, and he kept me so long talking
about Pompey's Pillar (which he has brought me a
piece of), and his last voyage, and future plans, that I
have hardly any time before me to write. . . . Whatever
spell keeps you at Bath will, I trust, be broken by the
incantations of the little Witches which seal this letter."

In the following September Lady Hester left England
with Mr. and Mrs. Egerton. The parting from old
Lady Chatham must have been very trying. "Grand-
mama will hardly let me out of her sight," she says
in one of her letters, " now that she is to lose me so
soon " ; and both must have felt how uncertain it was
they should ever meet again. In those days, too, a
tour on the Continent was somewhat of a formidable,
if not a venturesome, undertaking, and the amount of
preparation it entailed would strike a modern traveller
dumb. Now, whatever quarter of the globe he may
wish to visit, he has only to " take his tickets," pack
up, and go. Then, home affairs had to be settled and
provided for during an absence of many months, " the
handsomest and most commodious travelling carriage
that Leader ever built" ordered, servants engaged,
advice taken as to the safest routes, and lamentable

1776-1803] TURIN 37

tales of robberies (" but for these," says Lady Hester,
" I care nothing ") listened to. Thus it was that eleven
months had elapsed before Mr. Egerton's project could
be carried into execution.

Before joining her travelling companions at Dover,
Lady Hester paid a visit to Mr. Pitt at Walmer Castle.
She found him seriously ill l :

Lady Hester to Mr, T. J. Jackson

"September 2ist, 1802.

"Even the illness of my dear uncle has not made
me quite forget the request you made me; but the
first thing I must say is that, thank God ! he is quite
recovered, and if he was to be ill, perhaps my having
the opportunity of showing him I have talents as a
nurse is better than his having had to nurse himself.

" I am enchanted with everything here. I have
never seen the face of a woman till to-day. Charm-
ing!— nothing but pleasant men. But I leave them
all on Thursday.

"Now for the print. Edridge, who lives in some
street leading out of Cavendish Square, has just made
a new drawing of Mr. Pitt ; they say very like.2 My
favourite is from a picture by Gainsborough, and can
be had if you give the commission to somebody who
understands the thing.

" I am to meet Mahon in three weeks, and he is to
travel some time with me and return by sea."

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

" TURIN,

" October 2$tA, 1802.

"As far as I can judge, Mahon appears to have
made great progress in every branch of learning, and
to be remarkably well versed in the politics of Europe.

1 " The alarming symptoms, it is true, did not last very long," writes
his physician ; " but minutes in such a situation I found long hours.
The day is our own now and the last battle proves that the main-
springs are good."

1 My father always maintained it was the best likeness he had ever
seen.

38 MEETS LORD MAHON [CH. i

He has the same good heart as ever, but, visibly, has
been flattered about his abilities, and converses not
pleasantly — too much like a Frenchman out of humour.
An immense quiz in his dress; but that I have already
reformed in part. He speaks likewise in his usual
hurried manner, which he most positively must get
the better of; indeed, I have no doubt he will, if he
only takes pains, as he can speak extremely well
when he likes. This is one of the things most likely
to annoy Mr. Pitt, and therefore you may imagine
how he is teazed about it. Here I am, therefore, in
quite a different character from that which I have
lately sported. I am for the present grown quite
steady again ; my head was turning very fast at
Walmer, but now I am tutor again, and, as I have not
much time to correct all the faults I wish done away
with ere my pupil returns to England, I must dedicate
myself completely to his service for some weeks to
come. . . . You, perhaps, are sufficiently acquainted
with my sentiments upon other subjects also to make
it unnecessary for me to communicate my ideas upon
what I have witnessed in my travels thus far. The
crossing Mont Cenis then is the only part I will touch
upon. I chose my own mule and muleteer, and left
the rest of the party to their frights and fears. The
day was divine, and I enjoyed it much ; a regiment of
horse crossed the mountain that day, which enlivened
the scene very considerably. I rode the whole way,
and my mule never made a false step. We arrived
here two days ago. The town I admire extremely,
but the inn is abominable, and so dark, that it is quite
like a prison. ... No English here but Lord Cowper,
who is going to Florence. . . . Mahon and his great
black poodle are making such a noise, it is in vain to
attempt tP write commonsense,"

1776-1803] TURIN— NAPLES 39

Lady Hester to Lord Haddington

" TURIN,

" October 27*%, 1802.

" You will not, I trust, take it ill that I left England
without congratulating you and dear Lady Hadding-
ton on your son's approaching marriage.1 Being at
Walmer during Mr. Pitt's illness so completely em-
ployed my thoughts, that I neglected writing many
letters I otherwise ought to have written. I have
remained in perfect ignorance of every transaction
both in public and in private life since I left England ;
therefore the marriage I here allude to may very
probably have taken place. If so, pray transfer to
the bridegroom Mahon's and my congratulations
and good wishes. This dear boy joined us at Lyons.
He has left Germany for good, and proceeds with me
to Italy, where he will embark for Gibraltar to see
dear Charles, and then return to England, to see what
he can make of his affairs. I suppose you know our
guardian angel has appointed him Lieut.-Governor of
Dover Castle, which is a very pleasant thing, consider-
ing who is his neighbour."

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

" NAPLES,

" December I6//&, 1802.

" I do not know if the hurried letter I wrote you
upon the road ever reached you. I sent it to Eng-
land, because I thought you great men are so fond of
delays, that in all probability it would find you there,
always going, and never gone. By this time you must
have entered on the duties of your station, and I trust
the ladies at Berlin have the same reason to praise you
as I have Drummond.

1 To Lady Maria Parker, daughter of the Earl of Macclesfield.

40 SOCIETY IN NAPLES [CH. i

" We are now the greatest friends in the world,
and a most agreeable man he is when one is once
thoroughly acquainted with him. I know how to
treat all this learning, which I take in turns to quiz
and admire. Some days I have no mercy upon him—
his books, his dress, his whims, &c. — at other times
I am all attention and unfeigned admiration of dif-
ferent works he has not published. The death of
Scipio, an unfinished tragedy, speaks the finest senti-
ments, and such as I wish all our rising young men
felt in their full force. ... I lament to a degree his
studying from morning till night, as he will kill him-
self, I fear. However, every moment not dedicated to
study, my company is hailed with apparent satisfac-
tion; he walks with me every day, takes me out in
his carriage, goes to the same parties in the evening ;
or if at home I go there, which I like of all things in
the world, for if Mrs. E. has a headache, it has often
happened for me to have found myself the only woman
of the party. Some play at cards, a serious sort of
whist; but out of the great number of Milords
Anglais, there are plenty of them to talk to ; but the
real fact is, that I find myself stand so well with D.,
Mr. A'Court, and the amiable little secretary of the
former, that I rather prefer this party to any of the
other men. Lord Brooke is vastly handsome, and
vastly the man of fashion, to be sure. Lord Grantham
is, they say, very sensible, and is not unpleasing. Sir
Charles Douglas is very fond of fun, is good-natured
to a degree, but not so well in point of beauty as he
seems to think himself. Lord Montague I cannot
abuse, even if I wished it ; he is so good a soul, and
so devoid of pretension. Here, then, are the most
distinguished of our beaux, though Mr. Algernon
Percy would fain come forward at the head of the

1776-1803] NAPLES 41

list ; but I shall put him in the background, as he is
no favourite of mine. Mr. Hope, Thomas Hope, I
think needs no description. Now for our gaieties :
Monday, Lady Neale gives a ball; Tuesday, our
Excellency, for the first time since he came here ;
Wednesday, a Russian countess ; Thursday, Mr. Hope,
another ball; and our young men, something either
Friday or Saturday. After what I have said of balls,
you must take it for granted that I am not unhappy
here ; but I believe you know me well enough to be
aware it requires a little more than unmeaning dis-
sipation to make a place pleasant to me. In this, then,
consists the merit of the place; there is dissipation
enough to please me (though they call it dull) ; there
are sensible men to converse with, and handsome
ones for an escort. I feel perfectly at home, and
satisfied I cannot do wrong, because Drummond is
too much interested in my welfare not to give me a
fine lecture if I did. So I go laughing and talking
on, and am very happy and very comfortable in every
respect, only dying to hear from England. It is now
seven weeks since any courier has arrived here ; but
Drummond expects one shortly, and then I hope to
get some letters, as they were all to come that way.
. . . Mahon left me at Florence on the i6th of Novem-
ber (I think it was) to embark at Leghorn in the
Greyhound. . . . ^Here the handsome Mylords inter-
rupted me on Sunday, and Drummond has since sent
me a letter, enclosed to him, from Mahon. The Grey-
hound cannot put to sea, the winds are so contrary ;
therefore, after having waited eleven days at Leghorn,
he determined to return home by land. His letter,
dated the 7th of December (his birthday, you know),
is a remarkably kind one, in which he begs me to give
him my opinion of his conduct without reserve, and

42 RELATIONS WITH HER BROTHERS [CH. i

send him every instruction I may think necessary. I
am pleased with this, as it proves to me he is rather
changed since we parted, for he then thought no
person's judgment equal to his own ; in short, to say
the truth, his conduct disgusted me extremely, and I
am quite happy to discover that the society of a few
English at Leghorn has taught him he is not the
prodigy he thought he was. But all this, like every
other fault I may see either in his brothers or him-
self, I can but too easily pardon ; and if I am severe
towards them, it is only from a wish to see them all
perfection. . . . Mr. Egerton has been very unlucky
with his carriage, the cranes have broken twice ; but
such roads I think nobody yet travelled. ... 1 must
not finish after all without saying anything half so
delightful as the views, the country, and the climate,
no person who has always lived in England can have
an idea of."

From these letters it is clear that the once "incom-
parable Mahon " was rapidly declining in her good
graces. Her love for her brothers was so essentially
maternal in its character, that it never struck her as
absurd for a young woman of twenty-six to act as
" tutor " to a youth only a few years her junior. Hers
was the tyranny of affection, that admitted of no
independence of action or opinion, and tolerated no
judgment other than her own. She could not under-
stand that my father, who was then nearly of age,
and of whose " shining abilities " she speaks in the
same letter, should claim a right to differ from her.

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

" TONNINGEN,

"July 17 th, 1803.

" My packet from Venice (which I hope reached you
safe),1 spoke of my adventures in Italy, and we have
had nothing else since we left that place. Any reason-
1 This letter is lost.

1776-1803] TONNINGEN 43

able set of beings who had determined to go home
through Germany would have chosen to take the
route through the places best worth seeing, more
especially Vienna and Berlin. Mr. and Mrs. Egerton's
object was Stuttgard, though neither of them were
personally recollected by the Electress. This silly
plan I did not, however, oppose, as I knew what
reception I was likely to meet with there. Nothing
could be more kind than the Electress was to me.
The terms in which she spoke of several branches
of my family could not fail of pleasing me, and I am
sure will flatter them much when repeated, particularly
dear Harriet " (Eliot), " whose mother was the
Electress' dearest friend, and with whom she used
to converse about me when I was quite a child, which
name I still keep with her, as she called me nothing
else but ' my dear child.' . . . The Elector took himself
off from Louisburg on pretence of business ; but the
fact is he does not like the English. The civilities we
received from Count Jenesson, his first chamberlain,
were great. I like him extremely, and find it was his
sister who married William Spencer, whom I have
so often met at Dartford Lodge and Belvedere. The
Countess is also a sweet woman, and daughter to
Lady D. Beauclerk, whose son married my friend
Mimi Ogilvie. So I felt quite at home amongst them,
and was constantly at their house during the time we
remained at Stuttgard. I found it very pleasant, as all
the foreign Ministers came there without form every
evening, amongst which was the Russian Minister at
Erlang, who was all devotion to me — an immense
good sort of flustering quiz, for he was determined
if possible to make them go to Berlin, as he perceived
I wished it, though I did not choose to ask them,
for had they made out their route that way it would

44 BARON DEDEM [CH. i

have been changed by next day. So I preferred

leaving it to chance. But I own I felt extremely out

of humour, when less than a hundred miles from a

place so famed for its gaiety as well as for its military,

and to be so stupid as not to see it. You see I put you

and a perfect poodle out of the question, which 1 have

been dying to get all through Germany, in order to

present to Mr. Pitt, and have never yet succeeded. . . .

After the poodle I must talk of that monkey the

Baron, the Citizen Dedem, Minister at Stuttgard from

the Batavian Republic. Such a conceited creature I

have seldom seen ; but he is clever and amusing to

a degree. He has been half over the world, and lived

many years in Turkey. His drawings of everything

interesting in Greece are quite charming, and his

knowledge for so young a man I should imagine

great. He was taken prisoner in Holland, travelled

in Egypt, and has lived a good deal in Italy. He had

offered Mr. Egerton to write for a passport for us

to go through Holland ; this he accepted, but I told

him (even after the letter was written and sent) I

would not rely upon any passport of the kind ; I knew

they would take us prisoners ; that poor Lord Elgin

and their fine promises were but too present to my

recollection ; and through Holland I would not go.

He was very angry, and told me for my want of faith

he should take care I was taken prisoner somewhere

else. I told him I hoped I should see him prisoner

first, as he was just the sort of creature to attempt to

land in England, and I should see he did not escape

so easily as in Holland. . . . The Electress strongly

advised us to go to Berlin, to take your advice where

to embark, and not go too near the French. As

a punishment we had a fine fright at Liibeck. Some

French officers arrived, they had troops only fifteen

1776-1803] TONNINGEN 45

miles off, and they were expected shortly to march
into that town ; so away we went, travelling all night,
to Entin, I the only one not alarmed. I amused
myself in the Duke's gardens, and Mrs. Egerton locked
herself up in her room. At last, here we are, at the
most abominable of places, starved and eaten up with
gnats ; these and some other beings of the same
description are the only ones that have ever filled
me with fear during my stay upon the Continent.

" We have had two or three bad overturns ; one
of the servants who was upon the dicky is sadly hurt,
and a dog in the carriage killed. This, I think, is
enough to teach one how much we are under the care
of Providence, when we consider that we all escaped
unhurt, and ought to strike reproach to the heart
of those who spend their days in murmuring and in
useless lamentations about little inconveniences not
to be avoided. I always thought happiness chiefly
rested in the mind, and since I left England I am
more than ever convinced of this truth. I like travel-
ling of all things ; it is a constant change of ideas. . . .
You would laugh at the collection of strange things
I have scraped together; and as luck would have it,
all those I got in Italy I sent home in a frigate, and
those I got in Germany, a very clever fellow (formerly
a mate) took safe off with the last mail, while the rest
of the party have large stomachs of Roman pearl,
trousers lined with amber, and heads twice as big as
their natural ones.

" We sail to-morrow with nearly thirty passengers,
amongst whom is Col. Bosville, Home Tooke's friend,
who is sufficiently disgusted with the consequences of
democracy. ... I know no news from England, but
report says here we are shortly to be driven from this
place by the Danes ; certain it is they have marched

46 THE DANISH ARMY [CH. i

in 400 men two days ago. Such a miserable set I
never beheld ! They are building a wooden guard-
house with all possible expedition. . . . This is a
moment when I am sure talents are no less wanted
than energy, and we seem to be deficient in both ;
we talk a great deal and do nothing. Poor Hanover !
had we parted with it for something it would have
been all very well. A great deal rests with you at
this moment, so we ought not to despair, as I do not
expect you will fall asleep, which must have been the
case with some people. At all events, I think few
instructions from England will reach you unless you
wait for their making the tour of Europe before they
arrive. You must then act completely for yourself,
which is perhaps a consolation to those at least who
respect your talents."

CHAPTER II

RETURN HOME — WALMER CASTLE — YORK PLACE — SIR WILLIAM
NAPIER — MONTAGU SQUARE — BUILTH — GLEN IRFON

1803—1810

LADY HESTER, on landing in England, found herself
without a home. Her kind grandmother had died in
April, and Burton Pynsent had passed to her elder
uncle, Lord Chatham, who had taken charge of his
other niece, the orphaned Harriet Eliot. All her
hope, therefore, was in Mr. Pitt. My father once told
me, that some time before, when talking of his sister
to Mr. Pitt, he had asked him, " What is to become of
Hester when Lady Chatham dies?" and, after a pause,
Mr. Pitt replied, " Under no circumstances could I
offer her a home in my own house." The plan thus
suggested was distinctly distasteful to him. It implied
the breaking up of all his habits, and a total change
in his mode of life, with the disturbing presence of a
vivacious and impetuous niece, of whom till then he
had seen very little. Yet, when the emergency arose,
he never for a moment hesitated. She was his dead
sister's child — his favourite sister's child — and she
must want for nothing that it was in his power to
give. His door was at once opened to her, and " he
welcomed her to his house as ner permanent abode.
Henceforth she sat at the head of his table, and
assisted him in doing the honours to his guests." It
was an act of pure kindness,1 and it met with its due
reward, for " he came to regard her with almost a
father's affection, and she, on her part, quickly formed

1 " How amiable it is of Pitt to take compassion on poor Lady
Hester Stanhope, and that in a way which must break in on his
habits of life. He is as good as he is great." — Lord Mulgrave's
Letters.

47

48 LIFE WITH WILLIAM PITT [CH. n

for him a strong and devoted attachment, which she
extended to his memory as long as her own life
endured.

" In her latter years Lady Hester Stanhope has
been frequently described. Travellers in Palestine
all sought to visit the recluse of Mount Lebanon.
Many failed in gaining access to the 'castled crag'
where she dwelt alone, and have indulged their spleen
in bitter comments on one whom they never saw.
Others who succeeded have portrayed and perhaps,
as I may deem, exaggerated the violence of her temper
and the eccentricity of her opinions. But not such
was the Hester Stanhope who, at the age of twenty-
seven, became the inmate of her uncle's house. With
considerable personal attractions, the Lady Hester
of 1803 combined a lively flow of conversation, and
an inborn quickness of discernment. Her wit was
certainly even then far too satirical, and too little
under control. She made even then many enemies,
but she also made many friends. Mr. Pitt was on
some occasions much discomposed by her sprightly
sallies, which did not always spare his own Cabinet
colleagues. But on the whole her young presence
proved to be, as it were, a light in his dwelling. It
gave it that charm which only a female presence can
give. It tended, I believe, far more than his return
to power, to cheer and brighten his few — too few —
remaining years." — Life of Pitt, by Earl Stanhope.

These few last years were the happiest and brightest
of Lady Hester's life. To them she was ever after
recurring with fond and undying regret. Old, neg-
lected, and harassed with debts and difficulties, she
loved to live over again the time when she was
prosperous, courted, and honoured as the adopted
daughter of the Prime Minister, and the world went

1803-1810] WALMER CASTLE 49

well with her. Above all, she clung to the remem-
brance of his kindness and affection with the passionate
devotion with which she repaid them. "Dear soul!
I know she loves me," he had said on his death-bed ;
and no truer words were ever spoken. She treasured
up every word and look that recalled those golden
days, to warm her heart in her loveless, solitary,
forsaken old age. His memory was sacred to her,
and her wrath at any real or fancied indignity blazed
up chiefly on account of the slight suffered by " Pitt's
niece." It was her one title of honour. She re-
membered how actively she had played her part in
the political world ; how she had been sought and
consulted as the best means of gaining Mr. Pitt's
ear ; how, to use Canning's words, she " stood instead
of preface and apology" in confidential communica-
tions with him, and had been employed to break the
news of his junction with Addington to the colleague
who so bitterly resented it. She had enjoyed her lull
share of homage and success, nor were they altogether
due to her position ; she ruled by the force of her will
no less than by her gaiety and wit — the flow of spirits
and brilliant sallies that brighten and charm society.
She made no secret of her likes and dislikes, and was
emphatic and impetuous in both ; indeed, she gloried
in her impetuosity, as a trait of resemblance between
her and the great Lord Chatham.

There are many descriptions of Lady Hester in
after life, when she was an old woman, but none —
that I know of — that gives an accurate idea of what
she appeared in these halcyon days. Strange to say,
the only writer who praises her beauty is Lord Hard-
wicke, who first saw her when she was fifty years of
age.1 No authentic portrait of her exists, for she
declared she never would consent to have one taken.
She herself tells us that she never was good-looking ;
the school-boy Thomas Price (see p. 85) says " she
was neither beautiful nor handsome in any degree,"
and Sir William Napier (see p. 61) agrees that " she
was not certainly beautiful." But — and on this point

1 I used to question Lord Hardwicke about this unknown aunt of
mine, in whom I was much interested ; and once, in my youthful
vanity, I asked, " Am I at all like Lady Hester ? " " You ? " he cried,
in great indignation. " Why, you are not fit to hold a candle to her."
(The authoress was renowned for her beauty in her earlier years.)

So DESCRIPTION OF LADY HESTER [CH. n

there is but one opinion — she was eminently attractive.
She was

" A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,"

with a very fine figure, and the air and gait of a queen ;
she had a skin of dazzling fairness, bright eyes — blue
in reality, though often described as black, as they
darkened and flashed in the excitement of the moment
— and a wonderful play of expression. Her face,
brilliant with animation and intelligence, reflected
each varying mood as it came, lighting up at every
passing fancy, every sprightly sally, every indignant
outburst, every delightful joke. No one, I suppose,
more thoroughly enjoyed a joke. She had by nature
the highest possible spirits, a good gift that never
altogether deserted her to the very end ; an intense
love of fun and frolic ; and a mischievous delight in
mystifying and making sport of others, which, 1 think,
she also always retained. She is said to have been
an excellent mimic, an accomplishment that probably
cost her dear, but made her a most entertaining
companion. This gaiety and light-heartedness were
to stand her in good stead during the troubled years
to come.

But the sorrows of the future are, by the infinite
mercy of God, a sealed book to mortal eyes, and the
present was all happiness and prosperity. Lady
Hester, in her new position, felt herself the most
fortunate of women, and was all gratitude and delight.
She had attained the summit of her ambition, for she
was now where she had always wished and hardly
hoped to be.

Lady Hester to Lord Haddington

" WALMER CASTLE,

" November \t>th, 1803.

" I will follow your example, and make no excuses
for not being a regular correspondent, but I cannot
omit saying how much pleasure your letter gave me,
and how happy I felt at being able to return your
congratulations upon my being here. To tell you
the kindness with which Mr. Pitt conducts himself
towards me would be a difficult task. . Mahon has

1803-1810] VVALMER CASTLE 51

taken a house near Dover, and is to be married next
week. I like Catherine Smith l extremely. He could
not have made, I believe, a better choice. Lady
Carrington I admire particularly ; she is a sweet,
amiable, sensible, and domestic woman ; he an ex-
cellent, friendly man. Upon the whole, all things
considered, the connection is a desirable one. . . .
After the history of the family, I must tell you a little
news of the French. We took one of their gunboats
the other day, and as soon as she came in Mr. Pitt,
Charles, Lord Camden, and myself took a Deal boat
and rowed alongside of her. She had two large guns
on board, thirty soldiers, and four sailors. She is
about 30 feet long, and only draws about 4 feet oi
water; an ill-contrived thing, and so little above the
water that, had she as many men on board as she
could really carry, a moderate storm would wash
them overboard. Having seen enough of their rascally
regiments, I certainly pronounce these picked men.
They were well clothed and provided with everything
— an immense cask of brandy, and a certain quantity
of provisions. They appeared neither low nor morti-
fied at being stared at or talked to, nor did they sham
spirits. They simply said they should soon be re-
taken, for it would all be over in less than two
months, and seemed perfectly at their ease; and,
Frenchman-like, some of them were dressing their
hair, and many attending in some way or other to
the decoration of their persons, by pulling up a pro-
digious black stock over their chin, or giving a
knowing air to a very large cocked hat, with a
horrible national cockade in it, which badge of
rascality constantly occasions a thousand reflections,
not of the most pleasant nature. Some people say
1 Catherine Lucy, fourth daughter of Robert, first Lord Carrington,

52 FEARS OF INVASION [CH. n

they will never attempt to come here. I differ from
them, be they who they may. I have seen the almost
impassable mountains they have marched their armies
over, which no person would have been rash enough
to have proposed, much less succeeded in. That they
will attempt anything, I believe ; and should only a
very few reach our coast, the mischief they may do
is not to be calculated, with such wavering fools to
dictate the conduct of those who are to repulse
them. . . . Mr. Pitt's ist battalion of his newly-raised
regiment was reviewed the other day by Gen. Dundas,
who expressed himself equally surprised and pleased
by the state of discipline he found them in. Lord and
Lady Chatham have been staying here lately. I have
been to all the reviews, &c., and certainly Lord C.
never looked so well in his life as at this moment, nor
did anybody ever contrive to appear as much of a
prince as he does — his led horses, his carriages, his
dress, his star and garter, all of which he shows off
in his quiet way with wonderful effect. I like all this
sort of thing ; and I admire my uncle most particularly
when surrounded with a tribe of military attendants.
But what is all this pageantry compared with the
unaffected simplicity of real greatness ! and how,
indeed, does the former shrink before the latter, even
in the estimation of its greatest admirers ! "

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

" WALMER CASTLE,

" November iqth, 1802.

" To express the kindness with which Mr. Pitt
welcomed my return, and proposed my living with
him would be impossible, one would really suppose
that all obligation was on his side. Here, then, am
I, happy to a degree ; exactly in the sort of society I

1803-1810] WALMER CASTLE 53

most like. There are generally three or four men
staying in the house, and we dine eight or ten almost
every other day. Military and naval characters are
constantly welcome here ; women are not, I suppose,
because they do not form any part of our society.
You may guess, then, what a pretty fuss they make
with me.

" The whole of the Carrington family are still at
Deal Castle. Her Ladyship I like extremely ... a
pleasanter neighbour I should not wish for. The
girls are all vastly well in their way : Charlotte,1 the
3rd (your likeness), and Catherine, the 4th (Mahon's
love), are, I think, the best of them ; the former,
perhaps, altogether the most to be admired, though
I would not change her to be my sister, as the latter
is exactly made on purpose for Mahon. She knows
what is right, nor is she the least likely ever to
encourage what is otherwise; she is admirably well
disposed, lively to a degree, and a great deal of
temper. . . . They can make Lord Stanhope decide
upon nothing,2 so very shortly they are to be married
upon articles, as it would be a very awkward thing
for Mr. Pitt's regiment to be called out, Mahon
obliged to join, and still unmarried. He has taken
a pretty, small house near Dover, till the Castle is
put into proper repair, and no longer made a garrison
of. Lady Stanhope is allowed to see Mahon, and you
will be surprised " (! !) " to hear has so completely got
hold of him, that I believe few persons have more
influence with him. ... I am far from satisfied with
him in any one respect. . . . We will hope experience
will teach him how inconsistent, how reprehensible is
the misconduct he now pursues, that of setting him-

1 The second wife of Alan, Lord Gardner.
J His final decision was to give nothing at all.

54 PITT AS A DRILL SERGEANT [CH. n

self up as a prodigy, and despising everybody's
opinion but his own, and remaining indolent to a
degree at a moment when every free-born Englishman
should exert himself in the defence of his country.
Mr. Pitt absolutely goes through the fatigue of a
drill-sergeant. It is parade after parade, at fifteen or
twenty miles distant from each other. I often attend
him, and it is quite as much (I can assure you) as I
am equal to, although I am remarkably well just now.
The hard riding I do not mind, but to remain almost
still so many hours on horseback is an incomprehen-
sible bore, and requires more patience than you can
easily imagine. However, I suppose few regiments
for the time were ever so forward, therefore the
trouble is nothing. If Mr. Pitt does not overdo it
and injure his health every other consideration becomes
trifling. You know me too well not to be aware of
the anxiety I am under upon this account ; and the
extreme care I take, or rather endeavour to take, of
this blessing (so essential to him in pursuing his
active line of conduct, therefore invaluable to his
country), is rewarded by his minding me more than
any other person, and allowing me to speak to him
upon the subject of his health, which is always an
unpleasant one, and one he particularly dislikes.
There is no use in flattering a man who is not ill from
fancy and makes but too light of his complaints,
therefore I pursue quite a different plan ; and I am
happy to be able to tell you, sincerely, I see nothing
at all alarming about him. He had a cough when I
first came to England, but it has nearly or quite left
him. He is thin but certainly strong, and his spirits
are excellent. His kindness to Charles has been equal
to that he showed to Mahon. Ever since he returned
from Gibraltar he has had him here, doing everything

1803-1810] WALMER CASTLE 55

most to his advantage, and treating him more like his
son than a distant relation. Charles is a great
favourite of his. His modesty in regard to his own
talents, and his earnest wish to do everything that
is right, endear him extremely to Mr. Pitt. He is
promoted in the 57th Regiment, now at Ashford, and
is likely to be among the first called into action
should the French land. Mr. Pitt is determined to
remain acting Colonel when his regiment is called
into the field. Some persons blame this determination,
but I do not. He has always hitherto acted up to his
character. Why should he then in this instance
prove deficient ? I should not be the least surprised
any night to hear of the French attempting to land.
Indeed, I expect it. But I feel equally certain that
those who do succeed will neither proceed nor re-
turn. . . .

" The Egertons are in Cheshire, expiring of the
approaching honour of Prince William's going there
for a few days. They have made acquaintance with
him at Liverpool, where they went on purpose to
accomplish this point. Dalton is at Shorncliffe Camp,
near Hythe. ... I wish much to see him to talk of
Berlin. I shall not leave posterity to quiz me upon
the subject of not seeing those places so much talked
of and worth observation, but cheat it by seeing them
all some day or other. My spirit could not dwell in
peace with such a reproach attached to my memory,
and still less when reflection taught it what were the
only obstacles to my curiosity being gratified — a fool
and a fidget. Well, but I am so happy now that I am
determined not to think of it. ...

" I think I have a right to expect a long letter for
this volume. When the invasion takes place you,
shall have another."

56 MR. PITT'S REGIMENT [CH. n

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

" WALMER CASTLE,

"January 14^, 1804.

" I lose no time in answering your letter, and
thanking you for believing your neglect in not an-
nouncing your marriage would make me angry. Had
I taken it in that light I own it would ; but I believed
you better employed. Let all those marry, my dear
friend, who believe it for their happiness, and I trust
you will find it to yours. As to your choice of a
wife, you have lived enough in the world, and with
all sorts of women, to know what is likely to suit
you best. It appears to me that a foreigner is much
better calculated for an Ambassador's wife than
English women are in general, as they but too often
suppose that when they leave their country, even
with a man they profess to love, that this sacrifice
alone is sufficient to make his happiness and neglect
other means of ensuring his comfort, or rendering
him as popular as he otherwise would have been,
without a wife. Foreign women likewise present
themselves so much better, and what etiquette requires
is often no trouble to them, when to an Englishwoman
it is quite a task. . . .

" We are in almost daily expectation of the coming
of the French, and Mr. Pitt's regiment is now nearly
perfect enough to receive them. We have the famous
1 5th Light Dragoons in our barracks; also the
Northampton and Berkshire Militia. The first and
last of these I command, and have an orderly dragoon
whenever I please from the former, and the band of
the latter.

" I never saw any Militia Regiment so well officered,
or composed of such pleasant men as the Berks. A
Northamptonshire squire is not pleasant in his own

1803-1810] WALMER CASTLE 57

country, and does not improve by transplanting ; but
the regiment is a fine body of men. I am at this
moment alone here with my little brother James,
who has left the Navy for the Army. He is too
clever for a sailor— too refined, I mean. I do not
regret the change, as higher powers approve it. He
is now in the Guards, and is to join, I believe, soon.
The time will be decided when Mr. Pitt returns; I
expect him in a few days. He was perfectly well
when he left me. His most intimate friends say they
do not remember him so well since the year ninety-
seven. Nothing can please me better than the pleasant
footing I am upon with all those most attached to
him, and the satisfaction it appears to give him when
they show me civility. It is impossible to say how
amiably he always takes every attention shown to
my brothers, and how anxious he is for their advance-
ment in life. Nothing can succeed better than the
two youngest. Charles is a great favourite of General
Moore's, and indeed he deserves it, for he is a most
excellent fellow. . . . Mahon is very idle about his
duty as a soldier ; it vexes me extremely. James is
much more known at Dover Castle than he is, and
understands the works infinitely better, as he has
often the office of escorting officers from here. It is
most fortunate for Mahon the ist battalion is so well
officered, as it nearly puts him out of the question,
a circumstance so mortifying that I should shoot
myself were I in his situation ; but I trust experience
will improve him. Lady Mahon is a vastly kind good
little soul; the more I see of her, the more I like
her. . . . Do not detain Lord Aberdeen too long, as
we want him here. Delightful Alex Hope has been
staying with us, and we talked often of Lord A.
Alex Hope is too perfect a creature, I cannot find one

58 FRENCH GUNBOATS [CH. n

fault in his character, but that of being too good.
Such perfection is awful \

"Gordon in the isth and I are great friends. Old
Fergusson introduced and strongly recommended him
to me. I have seen a great deal of him, and think
him a very fine young man. I am engaged to dance
with him at a grand ball on the i8th, when the officers
of his regiment and of about six others will all be at
my feet — very delightful ! . . .

" I do not know Lord G. Cavendish, but Lady G.
is cousin to dear Lady Katharine Forester (the only
woman I ever thought perfection). I write to her
often, and shall not fail to name your approbation of
her relation. . . .

" I cannot pretend to tell you what will become of
me this winter, as it will all depend upon Mr. Pitt's
plans, which you know circumstances must govern.
Should the idea of invasion become less probable,
and should the Dutch ports be frozen up, I am in
some hope I shall persuade him to go to Bath, not
because he is ill, but to prevent his being so ; it agreed
so wonderfully with him last year. . . .

" Oh, such miserable things as the French gunboats !
We took a vessel the other day loaded with gin, to
keep up their spirits, I suppose ; another with abomin-
able bread and a vast quantity of peas and beans,
which the soldiers eat. One of the boats had an
extremely large chest of medicine, probably for half
their flotilla. Their guns are ill mounted and cannot
be used with the same advantage as ours, but are
fine pieces of ordnance. Bonaparte was said to be at
Boulogne a few days ago; the officers patrolled all
night with the men, which was pleasant. I have my
orders how to act in case of real alarm in Mr. Pitt's
absence, and also a promise from him never to be:

1803-1810] YORK PLACE 59

further from the army than a two hours' ride. This
is all I wish. I should break my heart to be driven
up the country like a sheep when everything I most
love was in danger. In short, I would not, and he
knows that ; but always preferring to act kindly,
instead of harshly, on all occasions, has never once yet
attempted to thwart my inclinations."

Lady Hester to Mr. 7. J. Jackson

"YORK PLACE,

"March %tk, 1804.

" I have been in town some weeks, and am as
comfortable as possible. I live with Mr. Pitt's friends
in the pleasantest way that can be. Lady Stafford,
I think, is my leading female acquaintance, and per-
haps the one I go out with most. It is uncertain
how long we remain in town, and it is really a matter
of indifference to me, as I cannot but be happy any-
where in Mr. Pitt's society. I was at Blackheath
last week ; the Princess of Wales made a thousand
enquiries after you, and said she knew Mrs. Jackson
very well formerly. . . . Lord Camelford has been
shot in duel, and there is no chance of his recovering.
You know my opinion of him, I believe, therefore can
judge if I am not likely to lament his untimely end.
He had vices, but also great virtues, but they were
not known to the world at large. ... I have not time
to write a long letter, nor am I inclined as you did
not write to me; but I must just tell you Mr. Pitt is
well, and more popular than ever with all classes of
people. ... I made acquaintance with Mr. Charles
Ellis at Mr. Canning's, where I have lately been for
some days. We had a very pleasant party. Nothing
after all I like so much as a country house, with
pleasant people."

60 SIR W. NAPIER'S MEMOIRS [CH. n

Lady Hester was at the zenith of her glory when,
two months after this, Mr. Pitt again became Prime
Minister. No one surely could have more keenly
appreciated the power and position this gave her, and
she fully and freely enjoyed both. Nevertheless, it
is but fair to remember, that the advantages were not
altogether on one side. Mr. Pitt grew extremely fond
of her; she pleased and amused him, and her joyous
and brilliant presence enlivened and brightened his
home. Her high spirits were infectious. General
Sir William Napier, in his Life (vol. i. p. 28), gives
an account of a visit he paid Mr. Pitt at Putney,
which shows the happy terms on which they lived :

"In 1804, being then near nineteen, and having
been a brother officer of Charles Stanhope, Mr. Pitt's
nephew, I was through him invited to pass some
time at Putney, in Mr. Pitt's house. Arriving rather
late, the great man was at dinner when I entered the
room ; he immediately rose, and giving me both
hands, welcomed me with such a gentle good nature,
that Finstantly felt — not at ease, for I was not at that
time much troubled with what is called mauvaise honte,
but — that I had a friend before me, with whom I
might instantly become familiar to any extent within
the bounds of good breeding. Lady Hester Stanhope
also treated me with the most winning kindness. All
this produced a strange sensation, for I came deter-
mined to hold fast by my patriotism though in
presence of a wicked Minister, however polite or
condescending he might be found. Brought up amidst
Whigs, and used to hear Mr. Pitt abused with all the
virulence of Whigs, I looked upon him as an enemy
of all good government ; and my father, though not
a Whig, had always condemned his war with France
as an iniquitous and pernicious measure. Thus primed
with fierce recollections and patriotic resolves, I
endeavoured to sustain my mind's hatred against the

1803-1810] PUTNEY 61

Minister, but in vain ; all feeings sunk, except those
of surprise and gratification, at finding such a gentle,
good-natured, agreeable and entertaining companion.
I say companion deliberately, and with a right, as
will be seen from what follows. Lady Hester, more-
over, was very attractive ; so rapid and decided was
her conversation, so full of humour and keen observa-
tion, and withal so friendly and instructive, that it
was quite impossible not to fall at once into her
direction, and become her slave, whether for laughter
or seriousness. She was not certainly beautiful, but
her tall commanding figure, her large dark eyes, and
variety of expression, changing as rapidly as her
conversation, and equally vehement, kept the mind
in continual admiration. She had not much respect
for the political coadjutors of Mr. Pitt. Lord Castle-
reagh she always called ' His monotonous Lordship,'
and Lord Liverpool was a constant theme of ridicule.
Thus, speaking of a design at that time entertained
of conferring military decorations, she told me that
it had been agreed to by Mr. Pitt, but was stopped
by the meddling of Lord Liverpool, who insisted on
being a co-partner with her in choosing the colour
and texture of the ribbons. That, she said, she
thought, as a young woman, she might have been
allowed to settle ; but Lord Liverpool, being an old
woman, was jealous, and sent her four thousand
yards — she positively affirmed that — four thousand
yards of different ribbons at the expense of the public,
which he proposed to examine in conjunction with
her for the purpose of fixing on the most suitable.
She sent them back with her compliments, saying she
declined the concert, and could see no use whatever
for the ribbons, except to make braces for supporting
his Lordship's culottes, which she had observed were

62 PITT'S HOME LIFE [CH. n

always weighed down by the heavy official papers in
his pockets. This stopped all further progress in the
plan for military decorations.

" Of Sir John Moore she always spoke with admira-
tion, and said Mr. Pitt had a like admiration for
him ; that he never received even a common note
from him at Deal without showing it to his company
and pointing out the grace and felicity of the
expressions.

" Mr. Pitt used to come home to dinner rather
exhausted, and seemed to require wine, port, of
which he generally drank a bottle, or nearly so, in
a rapid succession of glasses ; but when he recovered
his strength from this stimulant he ceased to drink.
His conversation with us was always gay, good-
natured, and humorous, telling all sorts of amusing

stories; some of them about the colonel of the

Regiment, General , who was certainly a very

comical character, of which two of Mr. Pitt's stories
will give ample proof. The first was that, in the

midst of the fears of a French invasion, General

sent an extraordinary express with a parcel supposed
to contain important news, but which turned out to
be the night-cap of a member of the Government,
who had left it behind when on a visit to the General.
The second was also an express story, being a despatch

from , when he commanded on the south coast,

telling Mr. Pitt that 'two French ships were actually
then landing troops in three places.1

" Mr. Pitt liked practical fun, and used to riot in it
with Lady Hester, Charles and James Stanhope, and
myself ; and one instance is worth noticing. We
were resolved to blacken his face with burnt cork,
which he most strenuously resisted, but at the begin-
ning of the fray a servant announced that Lords

1803-1810] PUTNEY 63

Castlereagh and Liverpool desired to see him on
business. ' Let them wait in the other room,' was
the answer; and the great Minister instantly turned
to the battle, catching up a cushion and belabouring
us with it in glorious fun. We were, however, too
many and strong for him, and, after at least ten
minutes' fight, got him down and were actually
daubing his face, when, with a look of pretended
confidence in his prowess, he said, 4 Stop, this will
do; I could easily beat you all, but we must not
keep those grandees waiting any longer.' His defeat
was, however, palpable, and we were obliged to get
a towel and basin of water to wash him clean before
he could receive the grandees. Being thus put in
order, the basin was hid behind the sofa, and the
two lords were ushered in. Then a new phase of
Mr. Pitt's manner appeared, to my great surprise and
admiration. Lord Liverpool's look and manner are
well known — melancholy, bending, nervous. Lord
Castlereagh I had known from my childhood, had
often been engaged with him in athletic sports,
pitching the stone or bar, and looked upon him as
what indeed he was, a model of quiet grace and
strength combined. What was my surprise to see
both him and Lord Liverpool bending like spaniels
on approaching the man we had just been maltreating
with such successful insolence of fun ! but instantly
Mr. Pitt's change of manner and look entirely fixed
my attention. His tall, ungainly, bony figure seemed
to grow to the ceiling, his head was thrown back,
his eyes fixed immovably in one position, as if reading
the heavens, and totally regardless of the bending
figures near him. For some time they spoke; he
made now and then some short observation, and
finally, with an abrupt stiff inclination of the body,

64 LADY HESTER'S FREEDOM OF SPEECH [CH. 11

but without casting his eyes down, dismissed them.
Then, turning to us with a laugh, caught up his
cushions and renewed our fight.

" Another phase of his countenance I had yet to
learn, some time after my visit, which was twice
renewed at Putney. I was walking across the parade-
ground of the Horse Guards, where I saw Mr. Pitt
talking to several gentlemen, evidently upon business
which interested him. I caught his eye while some
forty yards from him. He gave a smile and nod of
recognition, and I was advancing to greet him ;
instantly his countenance changed with a commanding
fierceness of expression difficult to describe, but it
emphatically spoke, even at that distance : ' Pass on,
this is no place for fooling,' was the meaning, and
not to be mistaken."

It is refreshing to see the stately and reserved
Minister "unbend his brow of pride" to romp like
a schoolboy with Lady Hester and her brothers.

No doubt, in society she often startled and annoyed
him by her habit of saying pretty much everything
that came into her head ; and one can hear his warning
voice across the room : " Hester, Hester ! what are
you saying ? " But he could not help being amused,
lor her wit was as spontaneous as her gaiety, and
had far more fun in it than malice. There are two
wa}'S of saying even unpleasant things, and she gave
less offence than might have been supposed. Years
afterwards, her cousin, Henry Wynn, writes to his
mother (see p. 113): "I must, however, say that at
the time when she is abusing everything which is
most dear to me, she does it in a manner that it is
impossible to be angry with her, and I believe that
it proceeds more from a love of ridiculing than from
the heart."

She made his house extremely pleasant to those
he liked, and considered it as her mission in life to
" please Mr. Pitt." She watched over his health with
the most anxious solicitude, and wrote long reports

1803-1810] WALMER CASTLE 65

of it to his physician, Sir W. Farquhar. She also
wrote occasionally to his private Secretary. Here
is one of her notes :

Lady Hester to Mr. W. D. Adams

"WALMER CASTLE,

" Sunday, 1805.

" To have seen the Doctor l in a passion must have
been charming ! So like a saline draught ! I suppose
it is over by this time, as I never observed a draught
hiss for more than a few minutes. I wish he may
think proper to attack me in person, and I will sting
him like a hornet. I will employ that delightful
weapon — irony, which Mark Antony used with so
much success against Brutus. The business, how-
ever, I think, had better rest until I come to town
and talk it over with Mr. Pitt ; indeed, after what
he said, it must be so.

"A thousand thanks for the mention of a beau nom
grave dans mon cceur,2 which I hope will succeed in
proportion to the unhappiness I have felt upon his
account.

"You see I refer to the last lines of your letter.
I was frightened to a degree when the messenger
arrived. I thought at first Mr. Pitt was ill, and when
I saw his handwriting, that he was out of office, but
was delighted to find it was only papers he wanted.
I hope he found what he wanted; but they are in
great confusion. I wish you would ask him some
day >if he would like me to bring any more to town
when I come, for at this moment perhaps it is difficult
to say what are there he may want."

There had been a long break in her correspondence
with Mr. Jackson. In her last letter she had com-
plained that she never heard from him now he was

1 No doubt Lord Sidmouth.

* An allusion to Lord Granville Leveson-Gower (see p. 68).

6

66 DESPONDENCY [CH. n

married ; and though on this occasion it was she who
was in fault, eleven months had elapsed before she
wrote again. This time her letter struck a discordant
note. In the midst of all her social successes had
come a sharp pang of disappointment, and she was
despondent and discouraged.

Lady Hester to Mr. T. J. Jackson

"WALMER CASTLE,

"February yd, 1805.

" It is not my enviable situation (as the world calls
it) to which I owe my head being turned and my
neglecting my friends, but, alas ! to one of your
fraternity. For many months after I received your
last kind letter I believe this was the case, and now
my heart (however devoted it will always be to those
who have served me) points, like the compass, to the
North. Now perhaps you understand, and also under-
stand I am not happy; indeed, how can I be, when
I have shown my taste more than my prudence in
admiring an object which fills more hearts than one?
You know me too well, I believe, to accuse me of
being fond of idle confidences, and I esteem you too
much to give you any false reason for an apparent
neglect which even the cause will hardly justify to
myself.

" Last spring and part of this summer I bore in the
great world much more than my value, for talents,
looks, &c., everything was overrated, and although I
was perfectly aware of it at the time, then, 1 own,
I enjoyed it ; now, if I could command it, it would be
indifferent to me. But my looks are gone (as they
always do with the absence of health), and 1 have
been recommended to come into the country to regain
them ; and here I have been three weeks. To be near
my sister-in-law was a good excuse to leave town ;
they (Mahon and her) see I am not well or as gay as

1803-1810] WALMER CASTLE 67

usual, but do not understand why. As we have been
quite in different society, Mahon and her Ladyship
are as ignorant as you would have been had I not
written what I have. Indeed, il n'est pas permis to
write such stuff; but I have been too much in habits
of confidence with you to recede from them without a
cause. My sincerity will, I hope, procure me a pardon
for apparent ingratitude, and not draw upon me the
ridicule of a member of a corps I am now more
attached to than ever. I think there is a sort of
sympathy in my preference, as they all flock about me,
and seldom a day passes in town but one or two
constantly spend hours with me. ... I am, thank
God, most fortunate in still continuing to please
Mr. Pitt. I might (if it did not sound vain) say more
than ever, if I may judge by his kindness, which, if
possible, augments. In short, nothing can go on
better than we do — so considerate, so indulgent, is his
conduct towards me. Mahon lives en philosophe (near
here) with his wife ; he does well in his way, but will,
I plainly see, never do for public life. A little philoso-
pher * arrived the other day. Charles turns out
admirably, and is still with General Moore. James
has had a commission in the Guards for more than
a year ; but the Duke of York has given him leave of
absence to study with a private tutor, a remarkably
clever man. ... I think I shall remain here six weeks
longer. I am not dull, or, rather, not idle, as I have
the charge of improvements here — plantations, farms,
buildings, &c. The grave and the gay Generals pay
me all due respect and attention, and so would all the
garrison if I would allow them ; but as I did not come
here to be gay, I dispense with their civility and
society. ... I shall be anxious to hear from you, as it
1 My brother.

68 LORD G. LEVESON-GOWER [CH. 11

will be the means of proving to me that you have
not taken ill my long silence, which I think I have
explained rather at the expense of my discretion ; but
I will not say that either, for I do not think in my life I
ever did what I thought wrong at the time, and of this,
I dare say, I shall have in future no reason to repent.

" I often wish I was a bird — you might then see me
at Berlin ; but only in my flight there might be some
danger, in this season, of my wings being frozen, but
the warmth of my heart would, I think, overcome
it. ... When I left Mr. Pitt he was very well, and
bearing all the fatigue of business most astonishingly.
Poor dear Lord Harrowby's illness fell very heavily
upon him for a time."

Note by my brother, $th Earl Stanhope. " The ' Diplo-
mate ' here referred to was Lord Granville Leveson-
Gower, who had gone as Ambassador to Petersburg.
At a later period he was created Earl Granville.1

" Lord G. Leveson-Gower married another lady
(a daughter of the Duke of Devonshire) on the 24th
of December, 1809, and we find that only a few weeks
afterwards, on the loth of February, 1810, Lady Hester
Stanhope, embarking at Portsmouth, left England for
the remainder of her life." — S.

With this letter the correspondence appears to have
come to an end ; at all events, no more are preserved,
nor have I any others of this date— the momentous
date that was to close poor Lady Hester's brief career
of power and prosperity. The New Year came as the
herald of disaster and tribulation, for January, 1806,
found Mr. Pitt on his death-bed. He had come up
from Bath on the gth to attend the meeting of Parlia-

1 I have a faint recollection of him coming to call upon my mother.
He was then old, nearly stone deaf, and very silent ; but he had been
eminently good-looking, and considered very agreeable. He was the
second son of the Marchioness of Stafford, mentioned by Lady Hester
as her frequent chaperone (see p. 59).

1803-1810] DEATH OF PITT 69

ment, very ill and feeble ; but it was not till the igth
that he was pronounced to be in danger. His exhaus-
tion was so extreme that hardly any one was admitted
to see him. Lady Hester herself was excluded, but
James Stanhope, keeping out of his sight, remained
in his room to the end, and has left a minute account
of his last moments.

" On Wednesday, January 2$rd, Doctors Baillie and
Reynolds arrived about three, and gave as their
opinion that Mr. Pitt could not live above twenty-four
hours. Our own feelings in losing our only protector,
who had reared us with more than parental care, I
need not attempt to describe.

" From Wednesday morning I did not leave his
room again, except for a few minutes, till the time of
his death, though I did not allow him to see me, as
I felt myself unequal to the dreadful scene of parting
with him, and feared (although he was given over)
that the exertion on his part might hasten the dreadful
event that now appeared inevitable. Hester applied
for leave to see him, but was refused. Taking, how-
ever, the opportunity of Sir Walter's being at dinner,
she went into Mr. Pitt's room. Though even then
wandering a little, he immediately recollected her, and
with his usual angelic mildness wished her future
happiness, and gave her a most solemn blessing and
affectionate farewell. On her leaving the room I
entered it ; and for some time afterwards Mr. Pitt
continued to speak of her, and several times repeated,
1 Dear soul ! I know she loves me. Where is Hester ?
Is Hester gone ? ' In the evening Sir Walter gave
him some champagne, in hopes of keeping up for a
time his wasting strength, and as Mr. Pitt seemed to
feel pain in swallowing it, owing to the thrush in his
throat, Sir Walter said, ' I am sorry, sir, to give you
pain. Do not take it unkind.' Mr. Pitt replied, ' I

7° DEATH OF PITT [CH. n

never take anything unkind that is meant for my
good.' ... I remained the whole of Wednesday night
with him. His mind seemed fixed on the affairs of the
country, and he expressed his thoughts aloud, though
sometimes incoherently. He spoke a good deal con-
cerning a private letter from Lord Harrowby, and
frequently enquired the direction of the wind, then
said, answering himself, ' East ; ah, that will do ; that
will bring him quick.' At other times he seemed to
be in conversation with a messenger, and sometimes
cried out, ' Hear, hear ! ' as if in the House of
Commons. During the time he did not speak he
moaned considerably. ... At about half-past two he
ceased moaning, and did not speak or make the
slightest sound for some time. I feared he was dying ;
but shortly afterwards, in a much clearer voice than
he spoke in before, and in a tone I shall never forget,
he exclaimed, ' Oh, my country ! how I leave my
country ! ' From that time he never spoke or moved,
and at half-past four expired without a groan or
struggle. His strength being quite exhausted, his life
departed like a candle burning out."

All England mourned him ; but of Lady Hester's
grief who may venture to speak ? What had she not
lost ? Her best friend ; her only protector ; her more
than father ; the man whom, of all the world, she most
honoured and admired ; the home that was so dear to
her ; the position of which she had been so proud ; all
she most prized seemed to have passed out of her life
with him. He had been, as she said, a guardian angel
to her and hers ; she owed everything to him, and she
held him very dear. His care and affection had never
failed her, and she could recall no word, no look, no
tone of his that had not been kind. She had lived
under his roof, and been permitted to have a share in
his life, and she had glorified in the privilege, and
made all his interests, his ambitions, his hopes and

1803-1810] SOUTH HILL 71

his fears, her own. What was left to her now ? Her
occupation was gone, her prospects at an end The
present was a dreary blank, and there seemed to be
nothing in store for her in the future. Yet she bore
her burden, and faced the situation nobly and courage-
ously. The following letter, addressed to Mr. Adams,
is very striking in its uncomplaining submission and
unfaltering resolution.

" SOUTH HILL,

"January 26tA, 1806.

" Be my fate what it may, I am prepared to meet
the worst, conscious that I have already received from
Providence many blessings I do not deserve, therefore
I have no right to expect more. Yet my mind will
ever retain its independence. God always tempers the
blast to the shorn lamb, and He has blessed me with a
spirit equal to any misfortune (unconnected with
remorse) if I can support myself under the present
deepest of afflictions. You have no idea of the con-
solation it is to me that I received the last blessing of
that beloved angel ; and that, when forbid to see him
(because it was thought he would not know me), I
took my own way, and disobeyed unnatural commands.
My voice recalled his scattered senses, and he was
perfectly collected the whole time I was with him ;
and when I departed, and though his ideas again
became confused, he continued to name me with affec-
tion. This proud pre-eminence over the rest of the
world will compensate me for many future sorrows
which his loss must entail upon us."

Lady Hester, once again homeless and adrift, was
received in the house of her kinsman, Lord Harrington,
who showed her very great kindness. It was Mr. Pitt
— her benefactor even beyond the grave — who for the
second time came to her rescue. On that fatal
Wednesday, when his life was slowly ebbing away,
he had dictated his last wishes to the Bishop of

72 PENSION FROM THE NATION [CH. n

Lincoln, and considered her future position. With a
most kindly thought for the situation of his three
nieces, deprived as they were of a father's care, he
expressed a wish that a pension of £1,000, or £1,200,
a year, might be settled upon Hester, and a pension
also upon each of her two sisters. " I am far from
saying," he added, " that my public services have
earned it, but still I hope my wish may be complied
with."

Parliament accordingly granted a pension of £1,200
a year to Lady Hester, and £600 a year each to Lady
Griselda and Lady Lucy. "The warrants for this
purpose were carried to the King for signature by
Lord Hawkesbury before he retired from office."

Lady Hester took a house in Montagu Square, to
make a home for her two younger brothers, and after
a time resumed her London life. But London now
wore an unfamiliar aspect. It did not seem to be the
same place, and she hardly recognised herself amid
such surroundings. She was, in truth, a dethroned
princess. Her subjects had fallen off from their allegi-
ance, and the world, that had been at her feet, knew
her no more. She had not, perhaps, till then, fully
realised the alteration in her position, nor anticipated
its inevitable result, and she was bitterly mortified and
disappointed. She had been accustomed to queen it
in society, to be courted, consulted, and applauded,
and she could not endure to find herself now of little
or no account. She felt this supposed neglect acutely,
and resented it as an unmerited humiliation. Her
pride rose up in arms ; she became irritable, suspicious
of slights, and ready both to give and take offence,
discarding some of her friends and alienating others
at the very time when she most needed and claimed
their support. With my father she had now definitely
quarrelled, on the ground of his ingratitude (" that
abominable vice," see p. 206) ; and she was on bad
terms with Lord Chatham, Lord Grenville, and several
other relatives. Though her letter to Mr. Adams was,
as we have seen, dated from South Hill, she had since
broken off all intercourse with Mr. Canning.

I have no letters of hers of this date, which is the
more unfortunate, as it must have been in these that
her engagement to Sir John Moore was first reported.
She had already felt an enthusiastic admiration for

1803-1810] SIR JOHN MOORE 73

" Charles's General," who had been excessively kind to
her brother ; and that a strong attachment had sprung
up between them I do not for a moment doubt. But
I think it must have been more of an understanding
than an engagement. It is true she spoke of him as
the man she was to have married to M. Didot, ten
years afterwards, in Syria ; but there certainly never
was any open acknowledgment, far less announce-
ment, of their betrothal.1 It should be borne in mind
that there was every possible reason for delay. He
was a soldier on active service, heart and soul in his
profession ; there could be no thought or prospect of
marriage for him at that time, nor probably for a long
time to come. It must be a hope laid up for the
future, when, his campaigns being ended, he might
sheathe his sword and come home to claim his bride.
His last letter to her alludes to the chance of a joyful
reunion. But it was not to be. In 1808, on his return
from Sweden, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief
of the army sent to Portugal to assist the Spaniards
in resisting the French. Charles Stanhope went with
him as his Aide-de-camp, and James joined him soon
afterwards in a similar capacity.

Lady Hester, left alone, remained in a cruel state of
anxiety and suspense, as the letter here inserted
sufficiently shows. The direction is lost, and there
is no date.

" Monday Night.

" You are very good to forgive my not having
answered your kind letter, which I received in Wales ;
but the fact was I had nothing to say. I came to town
two months ago, much mended in health, but I have
been of late in so wretched a state of anxiety about the
army in Spain that I have fretted myself almost ill
again. Charles went with Moore; James has been sent
with despatches (the beginning of last month), and we
have never heard of his arrival at headquarters. Besides
all this, I am beyond measure angry with Canning,

1 Lady Griselda, as she once told me, knew nothing of it, and
believed that Lord Granville was the only man her sister ever wished
to marry.

74 "A BUTTON-HOLE BORE" [CH. n

who is certainly turned fool. Did one ever hear of
such appointments as those of a Volunteer Colonel
and Button-hole Bore ? I have not seen him once,
nor do I mean to. I cannot sanction public incapacity
and private ingratitude; for what are the claims of
these people in comparison to many I could name ? . . .
" I open this again to say that although I am not
a Peer, a Judge, or a Bishop, neither am I a Prince,
yet I have got the enclosed letter, only sent, as a note
tells me, to those I have named above. Read it, but
don't lend it on any account, and return it me
to-morrow, if I do not see you Wednesday." (The
enclosure has disappeared.)

She kept up a close correspondence with the
General, and several of his letters to her have been
preserved. Here are a few extracts from them :

Sir John Moore to Lady Hester

" LISBON,

"October i6M, 1808.

" Charles's Regiment was in the number of those
named to remain in Portugal, under Sir Henry
Burrard ; this was breaking his heart, and so was
it mine — but I have, at last, contrived an arrange-
ment, in concert with Sir Henry, who is the most
liberal of men, to take the soth with me, and now all is
well. The regiments are already marching. His will
move in a few days, and as soon as I have seen every-
thing in train here, I shall push on, and get to their
head. Pray for good weather ; if it rains the torrents
will swell, and be impassable, and I shall be accounted
a bungler. ... I wish you were with us. The climate
now is charming ; we should give you riding enough,
and in your red habit, a l'Amazone,you would animate
and do us all much good."

i8o3-:8io] SIR JOHN MOORE'S AIDES-DE-CAMP 75

Sir John Moore to Lady Hester

" SALAMANCA,

" November 2oth, 1808.

" I received some time ago your letter of the 24th
October. I shall be very glad to receive James if he
wishes to come to me as an extra aide-de-camp,
though I have already too many, and arn, or shall be,
obliged to take a young FitzClarence. But I have a
sincere regard for James, and besides, can refuse you
nothing, but to follow your advice. He must get
the Commander-in-Chiefs leave to come to Spain.
He may then join me. He will, however, come too
late ; I shall already be beaten. I am within four
marches of the French, with only a third of my force,
and as the Spaniards have been dispersed in all
quarters, my junction with the other two-thirds is very
precarious, and when we do join we shall be very
inferior to the enemy."

" SALAMANCA,

" November 2yd, 1808.

11 Charles is not yet arrived. His was one of the last
regiments that left Lisbon, and was not intended to
join us, if I, in compassion to his melancholy counten-
ance, had not found a pretext. We are in a scrape,
but I hope we shall have spirit to get out of it ; you
must, however, be prepared to hear very bad news.
The troops are in as good spirits as if things were
better ; their appearance and good conduct surprises
the grave Spaniard, who had never before seen any
but their own or French soldiers.

" Farewell, my dear Lady Hester. If I extricate
myself and those with me from our present difficulties,
and if I can beat the French, I shall return to you

76 DEATH OF SIR JOHN MOORE [CH. 11

with satisfaction ; but if not, it will be better I shall
never quit Spain.

" I remain always very faithfully and sincerely yours,

"JOHN MOORE."

He only lived long enough to see his dearest wish
fulfilled. Less than two months after this was written,
he had saved his army, beaten the French, and was
lying buried,

" From the field of his fame fresh and gory,"

on the glacis of the ramparts of Corunna.1 His last
thought was of Lady Hester — the last words that
passed his lips were for her.

Few death scenes could, I think, be more pathetic
than that recounted by the faithful friend and comrade
whose hand he held clasped in his to the end. They
had been companions in arms for twenty-one years.
" Anderson, don't leave me," he had said, as he was
being carried off the field in the deepening twilight,
the soldiers shedding tears as they went. Captain
Hardinge wanted to unbuckle his sword, which was
on the wounded side, and pressed against his shattered
arm. " It is as well as it is," he told him. " I had
rather it should go out of the field with me." Two
surgeons, hastily despatched by Sir David Baird, came
hurrying to meet him, but he bade them go to the
soldiers. " You can be of no service to me ; to them
you may be useful." He had told Hardinge that he
knew there was no possible chance of life for him. As
he was borne slowly along, he often made the soldiers
turn him round towards the battlefield, and listened
to the firing, pleased to hear the sound growing fainter
and fainter. At length they reached his lodging at
Corunna ; and there, standing in the passage, speech-

1 "He pushed forward from Salamanca on December izth with
25,000 men to attack Soult, and had defeated the enemy's cavalry at
Sahagun, when he learnt that Madrid had fallen, and that Napoleon
was advancing against hinv with greatly superior forces, while Soult
menaced him from another point. Thereupon, across the snows of
a mountainous region, he made a masterly retreat of 200 miles to
Corunna, which he reached on January I3th. There he embarked
his sick and artillery, and without cannon defeated Soult's army,
January i6th"—Li/e of Sir John Moore.

1803-1810] DEATH OF SIR JOHN MOORE 77

less and stunned at the sad sight, he noticed his faithful
servant Francois. " My friend," he said, with a smile,
" this is nothing."

He was laid on his bed, and his wound now
examined. " He spoke to the surgeons, but was in
such pain he could say little.

" Alter some time he seemed very anxious to speak
to me, and at intervals got out as follows : ' Anderson,
you know I have always wished to die in this way.'
He then asked, 'Are the French beaten?' which he
repeated to every one he knew as they came in.
1 1 hope the people of England will be satisfied. . . .
I hope my country will do me justice. . . . Anderson —
you will see my friends as soon as you can. Tell
them — everything. Say to my mother' — here his
voice quite failed and he was excessively agitated.
1 Hope — Hope — I have much to say to him, but cannot
get it out. Are Colonel Graham — and all my aides-
de-camp well ? ' ' Here Colonel Anderson made a
sign that he was not to be told of Captain Burrard's
wound. Poor Captain Burrard only survived his
chief two days. " I have," he resumed, " remembered
my servants — Colborne has my will." Major Colborne
entered at that moment, and he spoke very kindly to
him, and told Anderson to report that his dying request
had been for a Lieutenant-Colonelcy for Colborne.
4i He has been long with me, and I know him most
worthy of it." Then he asked again, " Are the French
beaten ? " Colborne assured him they were, at every
point. " It's a great satisfaction for me to know we
nave beaten the French. Is Paget in the room ?
Remember me to him . . . He is a fine fellow ... I
feel myself so strong ... I fear I shall be long dying.
It is great pain . . . great uneasiness . . ." Two of
his aides-de-camp, Captain Perry and James Stanhope,
now came into the room. He spoke to Perry kindly,
and again asked after his staff.

Then, after a pause, followed the last words of
all, " Stanhope, remember me to your sister ! " and,
pressing Colonel Anderson's hand close to his side,
he passed away without a struggle.

Which of us would not be found to say and feel—

" O morts pour ma patrie !
Je suis votre envieux."

78 LADY HESTER'S GRIEF [CH. 11

Lady Hester mourned him with an overwhelming
sense of loss. What woman ever had more cause to
grieve? With him was buried every promise the
future had held out to her, the home she was to have
shared with him, the life spent together, the storm-
sheltered haven where she might end her days, the
priceless love and devotion that was to give her all.
How different — how widely different — her fate must
have been if he had lived !

She never forgot him. Often and often, in the far-off
dismal years to come, buried in the solitude of the
Lebanon, she must have mused over all that might
have been, and was never to be, in the inexorable
Past. Almost the only trinkets she retained to the
end were some sleeve-links containing his hair; and
there is a tradition at Djoun of a blood-stained glove
that she kept carefully locked up, and would often
take out and look at.

It was characteristic that almost her first thought,
on receiving the fatal news, was anxiety that her
hero's memory should be duly honoured, and she at
once wrote to the Prime Minister (Lord Grenville)
on the subject. Although she signs herself " Your
affectionate Cousin," it will be observed that she
addresses him with the cold formality of a stranger,
and a decidedly aggressive stranger.

Lady Hester to Lord Grenville

" MONTAGU SQUARE,

''''January -z^th.

" At a moment when I am quite broken-hearted at
the loss of our valuable friend, General Moore, and
in a state of cruel anxiety about my brothers, I am
little able to frame excuses for the liberty I take in
addressing you ; yet I think that my motives for
troubling your Lordship will be sufficiently evident
to make apology unnecessary. Fully aware that the
merits of the General, whose loss is but too severely
felt by his country, are acknowledged by your Lord-
ship, I have no doubt of your intention to grant him
every tribute of public respect due to his talents and

1803-1810] MONTAGU SQUARE 79

virtues. Yet I feel it a duty incumbent upon me, as
the last proof I can give of that gratitude and affection
(upon which he had so many claims) to state to your
Lordship what I am persuaded will increase your
interest towards him, and have no small weight in
strengthening the high opinion you may have formed
of his merits. Circumstances, never sufficiently to
be lamented, have in all probability prevented your
Lordship from being aware of a fact which was men-
tioned to me in confidence by Mr. Pitt, and which I
have never before conversed upon with any one except
my brother Charles, to whom it was communicated
by Sir John Moore, as he was to have accompanied
him had the expedition taken place. Some intel-
ligence Mr. Pitt received on his return to office led
him to decide upon sending a large body of troops
to France, provided it was possible to make good
their landing. He promised General Moore the
command of 30,000 men ; indeed, of all the disposable
force of the country, if he thought such a force
necessary ; but, upon the General reconnoitring the
coast, he judged it most prudent to give up the plan.
Of course some of the present Ministers must have
)een aware of what was in agitation at that period,
md of the unlimited confidence Mr. Pitt placed in
Sir John Moore's judgment and exertions, which
xmsiderably adds to their guilt, for no man could
have been more ill-treated than the General has been
by them. I have great apprehensions that they will
even persecute him beyond the grave, by blackening
his memory and diminishing the honours he is so
well entitled to from his country. As I am aware how
much I have been abused, and that your Lordship
is said to have a strong prejudice against women
meddling in politics, I shall beg leave to remark that

8o DEATH OF CHARLES STANHOPE [CH. 11

I neither wish to be put in possession of your senti-
ments respecting the subject which I have addressed
you upon, or expect to receive any answer to my
letter. But should any doubt exist in your Lordship's
mind of the accuracy of my statement, you can take
proper means to make enquiries of the Duke of York,
who cannot be ignorant of what I have asserted, and
who, I am sure, with his usual kindness and liberality,
will bear testimony to the high esteem in which
Mr. Pitt ever held General Moore's public and private
character, and no doubt add H.R.H.'s sentiments of
constant approbation of the conduct of this lamented
and distinguished officer."

When Lady Hester wrote this, she was yet ignorant
of her brother's fate. She had now to learn that poor
Charles had been shot through the heart while leading
on his men, almost at the same moment that the
General received his death wound. This second
crushing blow, following so closely on the first,
completely overpowered her. There is a touching
letter — unfortunately imperfect — that describes her
agony of grief, and was probably written to the
same friend whose name is lost. I have here repro-
duced it, without attempting to fill up the gaps left
by the fragments torn away.

"M. SQUARE,

11 Monday.

" You are very kind to me, my dear friend. I would
have written before, but really I have been unable to
do anything. To have lost by one fatal blow the best
and kindest of brothers, and the dearest of friends,
is a misfortune so cruel, that I am convinced I can
never recover it. I try to resign myself to the will
of God, and reap what consolation I can from the idea
that my beloved brother fell in the proud execution
of his duty, adored by all who accompanied him to

1803-1810] MONTAGU SQUARE 81

the field. The last observation the dear and lamented
General in ... was upon the furious . . . for had
they given way . . . must have been cut to pieces.
He rode up, on seeing their wonderful exertions, and
called out, ' Well done, the soth, well done, my
Majors ! ' ' (My brother and his friend Napier com-
manded the regiment, the Lieut.-Colonel being absent.)
" Moore received his death-blow shortly after, and my
poor brother fell nearly at the same time. Thank
Heaven, the latter did not suffer one instant, or had time
to reflect on the misery of those who remain to deplore
his loss. The gallant General lived three hours, but
the agony he was in never deranged his ideas; he
was perfectly collected ... of what he must have . . .
last words he was . . . ' remember me to your sister ' ;
he then smiled and went to Heaven without a groan.
You may wonder I can tell you all this; but grief
has its peculiarities, and thinking of nothing else but
those I have lost, I like to talk of them, and the very
first person I saw, and, indeed, almost the only one
1 have devoted my time to since, is Colonel Anderson,
an officer who has served fifteen years with the dear
General, and whom Charles loved and respected as
he deserves. Knowing the nature of my feelings, the
instant he arrived in town he came to me and told
me everything in detail. Moore called to him as he
was about to ... and he remained with h . . . I was
half distracted till J . . . the poor little creature . . .
gone through ; but Heaven be praised that he has
been spared me ! I often consider him with astonish-
ment, and wonder how it is possible that he is alive.
His cloak, buckled upon his horse, was shot through,
and the spent ball hit, but did not wound him. He
advanced one pace out of a line to see if he could
ca . . . one more look at his brother, and the four
7

Si DANGERS OF JAMES STANHOPE [CH. «

men near him were all taken off by a cannon ball.
He says no one thing on the face of the earth could
have made up to him for not being there, as it afforded
him an opportunity of performing ... to the two
persons he most loved on ... Beloved Charles was
so adored by the regiment, that, as soon as he fell,
they called out, 'They shall pay for it!— we will be
revenged ! ' and they fought on as well without officers
as with. Officers and men have all put themselves into
mourning. A greater mark of respect was, I think,
never yet paid so young a man. All the Grenvilles
and all the people I care about have been most
extremely kind to me. Canning has attempted to
be so too, but I would have nothing to say to him.
I can at this moment less forgive his conduct to Moore
than I was ever before inclined to do. I think that
Government will hardly stand the Spanish question.
Our plans remain the s . . . Colonel Anderson accom-
pany . . . Bath in about three weeks. One of our
great comforts is to hear Anderson talk over and
praise those who are no more. He has been most
seriously wounded in former actions, is now in bad
health, and quite broken-hearted ; therefore it will
be a consolation to us to be able to pay him every
possible kindness and attention. I have written you
a sad, confused letter, but I feel as if I had just waked
from a horrid dream, so you must forgive it. . . ."

Lady Hester's passionate grief was exasperated and
embittered by a keen sense of wrong — the wrong done
to the memory of Moore. His conduct of the cam-
paign had been unfavourably commented upon in
rarliament, his plans sharply critised, and every word
of blame or cavil was a fresh wound that cut her to
the quick. She was chiefly indignant with Lord
Castlereagh ; but Canning came in for a full share of
her wrath. The letter of condolence he addressed to

i8o3-i8ioj MONTAGU SQUARE 83

his " dearest Lady Hester " received the following
vehement reply :

Lady Hester to Mr. Canning

" Saturday Night.

"Three years ago, in Devonshire, I absolved you
from all future kindness and attention to me ; but that
which you once bestowed on me I found too valuable
not to accompany my request with an entreaty that
you would grant it in reversion to my beloved
brothers. It is your neglect of them, and not of a
poor wretched being, that so much displeases me. As
for your attempting (when you had it in your power
for four months last year) to have mixed them up
with the rascally set you act with, I should have little
thanked you for, or permitted, could I have prevented
it. But never to have enquired after them, either
through me (or others that 1 could find) when exposed
to such dangers, is certainly what I never made up
my mind to think possible. Even people I hardly
knew, but who loved and admired their sisters, took
means not only of being informed about them, but of
communicating to me all the intelligence they could
pick up. I repeat, I disapprove of your past conduct
to the dear General, and despise your present silence
respecting him. Were you gifted with eloquence, not
to do justice to his glorious death ? but if you FEEL
like that vile Castlereagh, perhaps you do well not to
tell the host of lies he did in the House, and hold a
different language out of it. I have a copy of a private
letter of his ; if he had come in my way when I read
it, it might have brought upon him the punishment he
deserved for his duplicity. ... I am also mortified
beyond description that you are not the public character
I expected, and I am sure this feeling is not softened
by your private conduct to those I love. After what I

84 REV. T. PRICE [CH. n

have said you cannot suppose it would be any con-
solation to me to see you."

She dismisses her uncle Chatham's expressions of
sympathy very curtly :

" I feel your kind attentions at this unhappy moment
as much as I felt your neglect of me under similar
affecting circumstances. I thank God James is spared
me, and try to console myself with the idea that if
beloved Charles could have chosen his death, it would
have been to have shared the glorious one of our dear
friend, the ever-lamented General."

Much of this excessive soreness and irritability may
perhaps have been attributable to illness, for her
health had completely broken down under the long
stress and strain of anxiety and suffering. London
had become hateful to her, and she was eager to escape
to some quiet place in the country, where she might
rest and recruit, and possibly regain her strength.
She bethought herself of a lonely farmhouse she had
seen the year before in Wales, and remembered that
she had taken a great liking to the place.

In the preceding summer (of 1808), being at Bath,
she had made an excursion into the Principality, and
taken up her abode in a little inn at Builth, on
the beautiful banks of the Wye. Here she made
acquaintance with the clergyman's son, then a mere
lad, afterwards the Rev. Thomas Price, who has left a
detailed account of her in his Literary Remains. He
and the landlady's little girl, Betsy Jones, to whom
she had taken a great fancy, accompanied her on a
long expedition she undertook to see the country,
going to Aberystwyth, Tregaron, and Llanwrtyd.
They travelled in her coach as long as the roads
admitted of it, and then on horseback, Lady
Hester leading the way on her "spirited palfrey,"
followed in single file by Elizabeth Williams,1 her

1 The daughter of a former dependant of the Chatham family. She
and her sisters owed their education to the liberality of Mr. Pitt.
Elizabeth Williams was a most faithful and attached servant.

1803-1810] EXCURSION IN WALES 85

maid, Betsy Jones, and young Mr. Price, while the
groom, leading a sumpter horse with panniers, brought
up the rear. Cheerful, affable, and indulgent, Lady
Hester rendered this excursion delightful to all her
companions. Mr. Thomas Price sometimes murmured
a little at the rearward place assigned to him in the
procession, having a particular aversion to the vicinity of
the panniers, but upon sending forward a remonstrance
along the line, he seldom failed to gain permission
to ride where he liked, which, of course, was by Lady
Hester's side. Her liveliness, kindliness, and genial
humour, won confidence and affection wherever she
went. She liked to assemble smiling faces and gay
spirits around her, and rejoiced in opportunities of
communicating pleasure. Lord Kensington's family
happened that summer to be sojourning at another
inn of the same town, and Lady Hester kept up habits
of friendly intercourse with them, and with all other
persons of rank and station, or of education and
talents, who chanced to come in her way. The desire
of action was her strongest incentive, and prompted
her incessantly to direct and assist whatever works of
skill and industry were carrying on around her.
Medicine was her favourite study, and she took a
benevolent pleasure in practising the art. A child of
Lord Kensington's having, while at Builth, accidentally
swallowed an earring, Lady Hester instantly sent a
prescription for the case, with exact verbal directions
for the proper treatment of the patient. . . .

" Lady Hester sought in Wales to become the
acknowledged and admired queen of her company, and
she received their willing homage most graciously.
She was very compassionate and bountiful to the
poor; besides medicine and money, she gave away
among them great quantities of flannel, and of the
coarse grey cloth made by the neighbouring weavers.
Her address and manners were most attractive and
conciliating, but she was neither beautiful nor hand-
some in any degree. Her visage was long, very full
and flat about the lower part, and quite pale, bearing

86 RESEMBLANCE TO PITT [CH. n

altogether a strong resemblance to the portraits and
busts of Mr. Pitt."

This likeness my father always stoutly denied.
She had left Wales at the approach of winter, but
spoke of returning the next year ; not, however, to
Builth, but to a farmhouse in the neighbouring Glen
Irfon, which she had discovered in one of her rides.

How much was to happen in the interval ! The
tragedy of her life had filled it up. What days and
weeks and months of trial and tribulation she had
passed through since then ! What a changed woman
she felt herself to be, saddened, disillusioned, em-
bittered, sore at heart, and broken down in health and
spirits ! The holiday tour of the year before seemed
to have receded miles away into the far distance. Yet
now, in her great dejection, her thoughts travelled
back to Glen Irfon. She wanted quiet and solitude,
and she made up her mind that no place would suit
her as well. She accordingly wrote to ask the Rev.
Rice Price (the father of her young friend) to make
the necessary arrangements. 1 have given the letter
in full, to show how very few and simple were her
requirements. Would a lady of the present day have
been content with so little ?

Lady Hester to the Rev. Rice Price

" MONTAGU SQUARE,

" April 24//fc, 1809.

" DEAR SIR, — You cannot be ignorant of the severe
afflictions which it has pleased God to visit me with
since I left Builth. I have suffered, as you may
imagine, most severely, both in mind and body. Some
little time ago, I thought I had almost decided to visit
some of my relations in Scotland this summer, but
have been so unwell of late, that I find I am unequal
to the journey, and now propose again trying the
waters and air of Builth. May I trouble you to give
Mrs. Price, of Glen Irfon,1 the enclosed paper, which
contains the conditions on which I shall become her
' The wife of a farmer ; no relation of the clergyman's,

1803-1810] LADY HESTER'S REQUIREMENTS 87

lodger, if she agrees to them ? You will read them
first, and I hope you will think them fair ones. I have
entered into minute details, as I was so tormented last
year ; not that I in the least suspect Mrs. Price to be
of the same imposing disposition as those I had to
deal with before, only I like great exactness in doing
business ; it has always been my practice, and if ever
I have deviated from it, I have had occasion to repent
it. If I get pretty well, I must go to Ireland to visit
the Duke and Duchess of Richmond, and may be
away six weeks or two months ; at all events I shall
not occupy my lodgings all the time I take them for,
but I like to ensure them."

Enclosed were her requirements — very far from
luxurious.

" I want the parlour, the little room above it for my
bedroom, and the little room next for a dressing-room,
a door to be made near the window to communicate
with the bedroom. The room over the kitchen for my
maids, and a bed, in the loft or elsewhere, for a boy. The
parlour must have two rush chairs or wooden ones,
and be carpeted all over with green baize, or coarse
grey cloth, like soldiers' great-coats, a table to dine on,
a fly-table, and shelves for books. The bedroom must
have two chairs, a table — no bed, as I shall bring
down a camp bed and furniture complete. Bedside
carpets I shall expect to find, and a chest of drawers.
The dressing-room must have two chairs, and a table
with a looking-glass, two wash-hand basins, two
water jugs, one large stone pitcher for water, two
large tumbler glasses, and two large cups for soap,
a tin kettle for warm water, and a little strip of carpet
before the table. ... I shall want no attendance from
any part of the family. ... If Mrs. Price chooses to

88 THE SIMPLE LIFE [CH. n

put things in this order, I will give her £25 for part of
the months of May, June, July, August, September,
and part of October — in short, the season. I certainly
shall not be there all the time."

Mrs. Price agreed, and Lady Hester arrived before
the house was quite ready for her.

" Masons and other workmen were still busy at
Glen Irfon, and with the sanction of the landlord of
the premises, Lady Hester undertook to superintend,
direct, and expedite their tardy operations.

" The house of Glen Irfon has gables in front, and
is faced with dark slate-coloured tile-stones over-
lapping each other. The only parlour lies to the left
hand in entering, the best kitchen to the right, and a
narrow hall between them. The staircase is good,
broad, and easy of ascent, having the balustrades and
the steps of dark polished oak. Lady Hester's bedroom
is small, and the adjacent dressing-room still smaller.

" She brought with her into Wales a coach, which
she kept at the ' Royal Oak' in readiness for particular
occasions, and had a lighter carriage — better adapted
for country roads — with her at Glen Irfon, where she
also kept two saddle-horses and a cow. The latter
was named Prettyface, and Lady Hester amused her-
self with managing this favourite's dairy produce.
She successfully skimmed the milk, churned the
cream, and washed the gutter with her own hands,
but she never attempted to make cheese. She never
drank Chinese tea, but took in its stead, twice a day,
an infusion of fresh balm leaves."

One of the horses, at least, was not her own.

" I shall write to you again before I come down,"
she tells Mrs. Price ; " but should a groom and a

1803-1810] GLEN IRFON 89

stallion of my brother's come first, I shall trouble you
to find a place for the horse where he can be safe. . . .
This stallion I have a great respect for, as he carried
my brother about two thousand miles, and has been
in battle. It is the best-tempered, good little creature
that can be, and came from Poland. James gave fifty
guineas for him, and he is worth it, for he tired out all
the English horses, and went nine hundred miles with-
out resting one day, only a few hours at a time, and
never got a feed of corn the whole time, only peas. His
feet now are grown tender, and I want him to be
turned out soon in some safe, low land to cool them."

Lady Hester did not go to Ireland, but spent the
summer in her primitive lodgings at Glen Irfon, with
the tiny parlour " not more than a dozen feet square."
She liked both the place and the people, and was
deservedly popular in the neighbourhood. Her chief
friends were the clergyman and his youngest son
Thomas, who attributed many of his youthful efforts
at self-improvement to her influence. Betsy Jones,
" the sprightly, good-tempered girl of thirteen," in
after life read Lady Hester's 'Memoirs' with great
indignation. " She could not believe that so free and
kind and jolly a lady could ever have become so
unamiably harsh and severe as she is there repre-
sented to have been, nor did she find it possible to
identify or recognise any likeness in a picture which
assigns to Lady Hester the strange attribute of
a pipe."

She had come into Wales " disappointed and
mortified, aggrieved and saddened . . . ostensibly in
search of health, but in reality of peace and consola-
tion." How far she succeeded in obtaining either it is
impossible to say. But she probably found solace in
the scenery, the fine mountain air, the free country
life, and her long rambles on horseback.

The following letter was to a friend who was
entirely in Mr. Pitt's confidence, and had formed part
of his first Administration :

90 "A DAY OF JUDGMENT" [CH. n

Lady Hester to Mr. Rose

" September 13^, 1809.

" DEAR MR. ROSE, — Have not events proved how
just was the abuse I bestowed upon Lord Chatham
and upon Ministers, and what a day of judgment to
them will be the meeting of Parliament? I always
say to you, if I speak at all, just what I think, just
what I wish, and you never take anything ill ; there-
fore I shall tell you at once that, after deep considera-
tion, I cannot help feeling uneasy at the prospect of
your suffering in the eyes of the world for the faults
committed by your party. They must fall ere long,
branded with infamy, and I wish to God, as you have
no love for office, you would not disguise your dis-
approbation when a proper opportunity offers to
publicly demonstrate it. I can have no interest in
what I am advising but your welfare ; if I am wrong,
it is you who are to correct me, but not blame the
feeling which dictates these opinions. I must now
thank you for having relieved the mind of the poor
fidgety old man who was the subject of my last letter,
which you must have received some time after date, as
I find it missed one day's post, being too late, and in
the part of the world I was then in it only comes in
and goes out three times a week. Upon General
Clinton's mission being at an end, James came down
to me; he spent some time at Glen Irfon, and since
then we have been to Swansea. He has just left me
to relieve Lord A. Somerset, and I am again become
a wanderer. I am now writing from an inn a stage
from Margam, the most beautiful place I have ever
seen, though the house has been pulled down. If the
new one Mr. Talbot talks of building equals the
grounds in beauty and magnificence, Margam will
certainly be the most delightful residence in His

1803-1810] MARGAM 91

Majesty's dominions. As Mrs. and Miss Rose are so
fond of plants, it would be almost worth their while to
take a journey on purpose to look at these at Margam.
Some of the old orange-trees were wrecked upon the
coast in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and are now so
hardy they stand out from May till the end of October,
and one might almost fancy oneself in a grove in Italy,
for I think there are more than six hundred of them.
Tulip-trees as large as fine oaks, and all the other
flowering trees in proportion. I suppose Miss R.
would tell me that a bay-tree was a shrub, but when
they grow fifty-six feet high, I think they are no longer
to be called so. I suppose you have read James
Moore's book ; l it is interesting, because authentic,
but most shockingly written, to be sure. Two things
he never should have done, published Napier's con-
versations with the French Generals, or left out one
word in his brother's letters, for all he said was just,
and events will (prove ?) it to have been so. We
already see that Sir A. Wellesley, so famous for
indulging his troops, speaks very harshly of the
conduct of several officers ; and we shall see, if we
have not already seen enough, how useless it is to
send more troops to Spain. Frere is certainly dis-
graced for ever ; his birth was always, in my opinion,
a sufficient reason against sending him Ambassador
to the proudest nation in the world. Nobody who
knows him can deny he has talents, but conceit and
indolence prevent their being turned to account ; and
since his conduct towards General Moore, I shall
never be able to endure the sight of him. But
Canning and he have both equally forgotten the
respect due to those Mr. Pitt thought highly of, for
had General Moore been General Don, they ought to

1 His Life of Sir John Moore.

92 LADY HESTER'S PLANS [CH. n

have been the last persons in the world to have treated
him as they did during his life, and to have forgotten
the respect due to a soldier's memory, who lost his
valuable life in endeavouring to repair their MOST

INFAMOUS BLUNDERS.

" When I began, I meant only to write a short
letter, but I have ceased to recollect I was writing, not
speaking."

On leaving Glen Irfon, " Lady Hester treated her
hostess with great liberality, and left many permanent
improvements, fixtures, and articles of furniture
behind her. The bath which she had fixed in her
dressing-room was long afterwards used as a corn-
bin." She also committed to Mrs. Price's care two
portraits, one of Mr. Pitt and one of the Duke of York,
enjoining her " never to deliver them up to any
person without a written order from herself." But
they were never reclaimed.

Lady Hester had not only regained her health in
the Welsh mountains, but matured her plans for the
future. She had determined to give up her house in
Montagu Square and go abroad. London and the
London world disgusted her ; and she felt it impossible
to resume the life she had led hitherto. All the zest
and interest was gone out of it ; there seemed nothing
left for her to take up again. Many of her friends had
disappointed, and some had deserted her; with some
she was out of touch, and with others in open antagon-
ism. She had now neither power nor influence ; and
politics had become a hateful theme, for she found no
words strong enough to denounce the Ministers and
their conduct of affairs. Whatever they did, or left
undone, chafed, vexed, and displeased her. The
country had not paid her lost hero the honour that
was his due ; a new General had taken his place and
was gaining its applause ; it was fickle, unjust, and
ungrateful. Everything seemed to be amiss and out
of gear in this troublesome and perplexing world ; and
her words were unheeded, her advice ignored, she could
only look on and lament. James was soon to rejoin his
regiment in Spain ; why should she not go with him ?
The change would be very welcome, and do her good.

CHAPTER III

DEPARTURE FROM ENGLAND — MALTA — ATHENS — THERAPIA
— CONSTANTINOPLE — BRUSA — SHIPWRECK — RHODES —
ALEXANDRIA — CAIRO — JERUSALEM — DAYR-EL-KAMAR —
DAMASCUS

1810-1812

I DO not for a moment believe that she contemplated
leaving England for good and all. Her plan was to
spend a year or two in Sicily, then under English
rule, and, as the Continent was closed to travellers,
one of the very few resorts then left to them. As her
health, never very strong, had been severely tried of
late, she judged it advisable to take with her a medical
man, and, on the recommendation of an eminent
surgeon, engaged a young physician of the name of
Meryon as her travelling companion. It was not a
happy choice. Eight-and-twenty years afterwards she
thus sums up her experience of him in a letter to Lord
Hardwicke. " Should you see the Doctor in England
recollect that his only good quality in my sight is,
I believe, being very honest in money matters. No
other do I grant him ; without judgment, without
heart, he goes through the world, like many others,
blundering his way, and often, from his want of
accuracy, doing mischief every time he opens his
mouth.' Were not these words prophetic ?

With this doctor, her brother James and his friend
Mr. Nassau Sutton, her maid Elizabeth Williams, and
a man-servant, Lady Hester left England on February
loth, 1810, little dreaming that it was to be for ever.
What would she have felt if she had known where
she was going for the rest of her life ? Would she
have imagined it possible that she was to end her
days as a hermit on a Syrian mountain-top ? No fairy

93

94 DEPARTURE FROM ENGLAND [CH. in

tale ever invented could have sounded more wildly
improbable.

The party embarked at Portsmouth in the Jason
frigate, commanded by Captain the Honourable James
King, who had under convoy a little fleet of transports
and merchantmen bound for Gibraltar. This rendered
the passage a very tedious one, for they were a whole
month at sea, and encountered heavy gales off the
Spanish coast, narrowly escaping shipwreck on the
shoals of Trafalgar. On their arrival at Gibraltar, Lady
Hester and her brother were received at the Convent
by the Governor, General Campbell, and met there
the Marquis of Sligo and Mr. Michael Bruce, who
were afterwards to become her travelling companions.
The Rock was then crowded with English visitors,
besides Spanish refugees with their families, and
entertainments and amusements were the order of
the day. Soon after, however, the party separated.
Captain Stanhope was summoned to join the Guards
at Cadiz, Mr. button went on business to Minorca,
and Lady Hester, finding (according to the doctor)
her health unequal to the gaieties of a garrison town,
accepted the offer of a passage in the Cerberus frigate
to Malta.

Here she was expected, and received offers of
hospitality on every side, including a very cordial one
from the Governor, General (afterwards Sir Hilde-
brand) Oakes, who showed her every possible kind-
ness and attention. She elected to go and stay at the
former Auberge de France, with the Deputy Com-
missary-General, Mr. Fernandez, who had married the
sister of Elizabeth Williams,1 and was an old acquaint-
ance of hers.

Valetta, again, was full of English, who, shut out
from the Continent, resorted in crowds to the Medi-
terranean, and the hospitable Governor delighted in
entertaining them. The palace was always gay with
company, and the young doctor records in his journal,
with honest pride, that he once sat down to dinner
exactly opposite to the General, " with a string of
Lords and Ladies and Counts and Countesses on
either hand." Sheridan was there, Lady Hester's
cousin, Lord Ebrington, and Lord and Lady Bute,

1 When Lady Hester left Malta, Elizabeth was left behind with her
sister, and Mrs. Anne Fry engaged to supply her place.

MALTA 95

who occupied Sant' Antonio, one of the Governor's
country houses. When they left for England at the
end of May, he placed it at Lady Hester's disposal,
and she spent two months in this most delightful of
summer palaces, surrounded by beautiful gardens and
orange groves. But the great heat disagreed with
her, and she became anxious to move. She found
that she must give up all thoughts of Sicily, on
account of a threatened invasion by Murat, which was
then preparing in Calabria, and might take place at
any moment. She then turned her thoughts to the
East — the only choice that was in fact left to her. But
travelling in those countries was difficult and even
venturesome ; she was advised that she must not
attempt to go without an escort, and her brother,
being on duty in Spain, was of course not available.
At this juncture Mr. Michael Bruce, whose acquaint-
ance she had made at Gibraltar, came forward to offer
his services, which she willingly accepted. He was
one of the three knights errant that effected Laval-
lette's escape from prison on the night before his
intended execution ; a clever, ambitious man, familiar
with every kind of travel and adventure, and both able
and willing (as the event proved) to be of the greatest
use to her. His friend Mr. Pearce, and Lord Sligo,
who was then yachting in the Mediterranean, were to
join them later on.

Lady Hester took leave of the Governor with
unfeigned regret. They had become fast friends ; he
had visited her every day at Sant' Antonio, and
rendered her every service in his power. At the eve
of her departure she sends him a box as a keepsake.
" If it occasionally puts you in mind of me I shall be
much flattered. Were I in France, where they work
so admirably, I might be able to offer you one more
worthy of your acceptance, for I should order that
a little bird should pop up with a spring and sing a
little hymn daily expressive of my gratitude for the
kindness you have shown me." They never met
again, but continued in close correspondence1 till he
returned to England in 1815.

She had again the good fortune to be conveyed in a
man-of-war, for she and her party left Malta on

1 A collection of her letters to him (from which I have made many
extracts) appeared in Co/turn's New Monthly Magazine in 1843.

96 LORD BYRON [CH. HI

August 2nd in the Belle Poule frigate, at the invitation
of Captain Brisbane, and were landed on the 8th at
Zante. Here they remained a fortnight. Another
courteous General then forwarded them in a Govern-
ment transport to Patras, where Lord Sligo joined
them, and they all embarked together in a felucca for
Corinth. Proceeding thence, they crossed the Isthmus
in an imposing cavalcade — twenty-four riders in all ;
for the Marquis travelled with a retinue that would
make the impoverished Irish landlords of the present
day open their eyes. He had with him a Tartar, two
superbly arrayed Albanians, equipped with silver-
stocked pistols and silver-hilted yataghans, a drago-
man, an artist, to sketch views and costumes, a Turkish
cook, and three English servants, two of them in
livery ! I fear these footmen must have rather marred
the general effect. All, except Lady Hester and her
English maid, were armed to the teeth.

At the little harbour of Keukri they again embarked
for Athens, and as they entered the Piraeus, observed
some one springing from the mole into the sea. " That's
Lord Byron ! " cried Lord Sligo, and forthwith hailing
him, he bade him hurry on shore and dress to meet
them as they landed. They were old college friends,
and Lady Hester saw a good deal of the poet during
the weeks she spent at Athens. A private house had
been emptied of its tenants to be prepared for her, and
here her friends used to meet every evening, Lord
Byron being among them. But she was not charmed
either with him or his poetry. " He was a strange
character; his generosity was for a motive, his avarice
for a motive. One time he was mopish, and no one
was to speak to him ; another, he was for being jocular
with everybody. At Athens I saw nothing in him but
a well-bred man, like many others ; for, as for his
poetry, it is easy enough to write verses, and as to
the thoughts, who knows where he got them ? Many
a one picks up some old book that nobody knows
anything about, and gets his ideas out of it."

They remained at Athens rather more than a month,
and left for Constantinople on October i6th, this time
not in a smart frigate, but in a filthy Greek polacca,
laden with wheat — part of the tribute paid to Kislar
Aga by his Athenian subjects. They encountered a
gale of wind in the Sea of Marmora ; and the Greek

i8io-i8i2] CONSTANTINOPLE 97

sailors, leaving their vessel to its fate, at once set
about collecting money from the passengers, and tying
it up in a handkerchief, fastened it to the tiller, vowing
to offer it at St. George's shrine if they reached any
port in safety. They did, by the blessing of Provi-
dence, reach Erakli, in the Gulf of Rodosto, where,
after this experience of Greek seamanship, Lady
Hester wisely disembarked, and proceeded to Con-
stantinople in a caique. She arrived at Tophane in
the middle of the night, and was carried in a Sedan
chair preceded by a man with a huge lantern (for the
streets were then unlighted) up the steep hill of Pera
to the house that had been hurriedly prepared for her.
But she by no means approved of it, and soon after
removed to Therapia, on the Bosphorus,' where she
established herself for the winter. From thence she
writes to General Oakes, on December 21 st:

" Since the fire at Pera good houses are so scarce that
I have taken up my abode at this place, where I have
a fine view of the coast of Asia and the Black Sea.
Lord Sligo and Bruce are about to set out on a tour ;
the latter returns here in a few weeks, but my Lord,
out of respect to you, means to take his passage to
Malta by the first opportunity, and return to us in
the spring. . . . Canning has behaved to me in the
civilest, kindest manner possible, but has never once
mentioned his cousin's name."

This was the " great Elchi " of the future, created in
1852 Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, who had just
succeeded Mr. Adair as Minister Plenipotentiary at
Constantinople. In the " Memoirs " quoted by his
biographer, Stanley Poole, he thus describes their
meeting :

" Lady Hester Stanhope brought with her all the
interest which attaches to a person of her sex remark-
ible for talent, and nearly connected with a great
public character. Not only was she the niece of Mr.

98 STRATFORD CANNING'S MEMOIRS [CH. in

Pitt, but she had lived for a time under the same
roof with that unspotted Minister in the full intimacy
of close relationship and daily intercourse. She had
known many whose names were familiar to me, and
some with whom I was personally acquainted. She
had seen much of Mr. Canning. On these several
accounts her conversation had strong attractions for
me, notwithstanding its measureless exuberance and
the not unfrequent singularities it displayed. Her
travelling staff was composed of Michael Bruce, who
acquired no little celebrity by the generous part he
took in promoting the escape of M. Lavallette, of Mr.
Pearce, the reputed son of Fox's friend Hare, and her
physican Dr. Merriman (Meryon), who subsequently
published a sketch of her life. She hired a house at
Therapia and spent the winter there.

" She told me sundry curious anecdotes of her
uncle and others — too many, in fact, to be remembered
at this distance of time. Speaking of Mr. Pitt, she
said that during his retreat from office he showed no
signs of discontent or restlessness ; that although she
had slept under his bedroom at Walmer she never
heard the sound of his footfall after the hour — an early
one — at which he had retired. She told me that he
always expressed the highest admiration of his father,
taking for himself, comparatively, a more humble
position than she was inclined to admit. She spoke
of the carelessness with which he often left his papers,
either scattered about the room, or at best stowed
away under the cushions of his sofa. General Moore
appeared to be her idol, and she took an evident
pleasure in talking of him. In proof of his truthful-
ness and sagacity, she said that on taking leave of his
Minister (Lord Castlereagh), under whose instructions
he was to act in the command of our forces in Spain,

"PRIMOSITY" 99

he declared, with his hand upon the lock of the door,
that he had no faith in the expedition and apprehended
a failure. She added that General Phipps had made
a call one day, and the conversation turning on Sir
John Moore, that he had sought to disparage that
officer in Mr. Pitt's estimation, and that she, perceiving
his design, had said, ' You imagine, General, that Mr.
Pitt does not greatly value Sir John's abilities, but
learn from me, you nasty kangaroo ' — alluding to
General Phipps's paralytic infirmity, and imitating
his manner of holding his hands — ' that there is no
one in the King's army whose services he appreciates
more highly.' 'Lady Hester! Lady Hester! what
are you saying ? ' exclaimed Mr. Pitt, with an ill-
suppressed smile which betrayed his secret enjoyment
of the scene."

I can never believe that he enjoyed hearing a poor
paralysed officer called "a nasty kangaroo."

Many notes and letters preserved among Lord
Stratford's papers show the friendly terms they were
upon. Some things which she did he distinctly dis-
approved of, and frankly told her so. She, on her part,
freely joked him for what she called his primosify —
the grave formality of manner, certainly unusual in
so young a man. Here are some extracts from this
correspondence. Unfortunately, none of the letters are
dated :

Lady Hester to Mr. S. Canning

" I have a thousand thanks to return to you for the
wine you were so good as to send. I feel this kind
attention like all those I have received at your hands
since my residence in this part of the world. We have
all been ill in the house, therefore I have postponed
saying I shall be happy to see you. If it is convenient
for you to ride down on Friday, I hope you will call
for an hour and settle some day to dine here next

ioo SPANISH POLITICS [CH. in

week. I mention Friday, because Mr. Pisani threatens
a visit Saturday or Sunday."

" Should you receive any intelligence from Cadiz,
it would be very kind of you to give me a little in-
formation, for I am so anxious about my brother ; in
his last letter he tells me there is a fever broke out, but
it had not then reached Isla. I trust you will not quite
crack your brain with politics, particularly Spanish
politics, for you may depend upon it they are not worth
thinking about, any further than individuals are con-
cerned. If you had seen all those fools, called Generals,
1 saw at Gibraltar you would think so likewise.
Miranda has been invited to head the revolutionists
in South America, and was to leave England the day
after he wrote to me. If that country emancipates
itself, what is to become of Spain ? and what are her
present resources, drained as she has been by con-
tending armies ? I like to take a grand view of things
and look a little into futurity, yet dispassionately
consider the present state of affairs. You may per-
haps think me very impertinent to give my opinion
thus uncalled for to an &c., &c., &c., but I always
speak and write just what I think, even to princes.
If my little notes from the banks of the Bosphorus
please you, some day you may perhaps receive some
from the banks of the Orinoco."

" Mr. Pisani and I got on very well, and he has
most politely sent me some fresh butter made in a
bottle ; how got out in the dignified state in which I
received it is about as great a wonder to me as that
such a creature as Mr. Perceval should get into office,
and become Prime Minister of England. I send you
the third volume of Lord Chatham's ' Life ' ; how
wonderfully the military anecdotes contained in it cut
up the Generals of that day ! 1 wish I had the pen

1810-1812] CONSTANTINOPLE 101

of the writer, to lash those in the profession I most
dislike ; to name them you might think undutiful."

" If you have any news from Spain or Portugal, in
charity send it me. I am so anxious for the arrival
of letters, and when they come shall dread to open
them. There is no saying what trials may still be in
reserve for me, and I have had enough. ... I am not
going to flatter you, but some of your opinions are so
like those of my great Oracle, that I send you his
letters to his nephew, just to compare them."

" I take the liberty of sending you Mr. Pitt's ' Life/
that you may refer to past times, as I fancy your
mind, like mine, dwells with anxiety upon the present
awkward situation of affairs at home. When you come
here, we must look into my grandfather's life, which
is my Bible. When so impatient with the gout that
he could not bear any one to approach him, he had
me, a little child in arms, laid upon his bed for hours
together, and when he sat up used to nurse me. I
suppose this inspired me with a true love for politics,
and a sovereign contempt for the world, which he
possessed in the highest degree.

" I have told the Doctor he might remain a few
days longer at Pera, if Lord Plymouth requires his
assistance. I never saw his Lordship, and I detest
his mother, and only act towards him as I should do
towards the most perfect stranger. Therefore pray
do not make any fine speeches, for I should very
much dislike to do anything which might in future
bring on an acquaintance. But any medicines he
cannot get here he is welcome to, and this you may
assure him of in a simple way, as the Doctor's
expressions are so very flowery when they do come
out (and it is a long time first), that I cannot very
well trust him with this commission."

102 TURKISH GRAVITY [CH. in

Lady Hester to Mr. S. Canning
" I am much obliged to you for the papers, which
I return ; nor am I angry at your scold. I only beg
leave to ask you one question. When did four Turks,
and one the brother of a Captain Pacha, visit and
dine with a Christian woman ? I wore my sword
with such an air that it has made a conquest of them
all, and they begin to find their own women rather
stupid (at least they say so, but men fib sadly) ;
therefore I should recommend you to take advantage
of this new discovery, and pack up one to take to
England with you. For in good time I hope to de-
stroy the gravity of these men, and then it will be a
great satisfaction to the ladies who have been used to
this quality to find you possess it in so high a degree.
I am sorry to say, were I in my grave, it would be lost
upon me. Look sharp, or I shall intrude myself under
some strange form into the sanctuary you inhabit and
burn all the papers, and unprimefy Sir H. Jones, who,
if he was not a quiz before, must be turned into one
from having been kept under lock and key, and bored to
death with business ever since his arrival. I am sure
I shall more than like Captain Barrie, if you will not
stamp him with mystery and solemnity before I have
made his acquaintance. The Doctor tells me that you
were so improved with the small portion of country
air you allowed yourself to breathe that I cannot but
wish you could make it convenient to try a little
more of it, and it would flatter me much if you put
it in my power to watch the progress of its effect."

" I return you your papers and letter with many
thanks. The Cortes does not seem to be going on
very well; but 1 never believe any statement in the
Gibraltar Gazette, for I know for certain that articles
for that paper have been fabricated in the Foreign

1810-1812] CONSTANTINOPLE 103

Office and sent out there to be printed, and afterwards
recopied into English newspapers — 'extracts of letters
from Gibraltar from the Gibraltar Gazette' — a pack of
stuff about Spanish affairs. Besides, Kali at Gibraltar
writes for these papers. I have often seen his pro-
ductions before they were printed, and they were his
from beginning to end.

"As you are fond of reports, I must tell you one
that is called a fact, and it comes from your enemies —
that the Austrians are displeased with the Emperor
for having promised to pay eighty millions of florins
with his daughter. Half he has paid, but when about
to levy the rest, there was so much discontent created
at Vienna, that he set off to Prague with four regiments
of cavalry, La Tour (the famous Hussars), Stepships,
Clino, and Wurtemberg — so sound the names, but I
cannot spell German. Should this be true, I suppose
it will please you ; but I should say the Emperor was
a great fool to leave the capital. I believe Prague
could at one time send 60,000 men into the field.
Now imagine the Emperor at the head of these troops,
so attached to the English and the great cause, grant
subsidies, when we have no money, and when five
shillings are sold for seven at Malta, create a revo-
lution in Germany to destroy the French interest,
and send a General from the Horse Guards to
organize an army, never considering he cannot get
there without wings (which, when General Clinton
was appointed, last summer twelvemonth, was totally
forgotten, and in which well-imagined appointment I
was not a little interested, as he chose my brother
out of the whole army as the young man of the
greatest resource he knew). Imagine all these things,
and then you will have a pleasant diplomatic dream,
and awake seeing everything en rose"

104 AN ALBANIAN INCIDENT [CH. in

Lady Hester to Mr. S. Canning
" Perhaps I have been guilty of a little imprudence
to-day, though I think I only acted justly. Complaints
were made me of Lord Sligo's Albanian, who is a very
reprobate fellow, and he thought proper last night to
fire off his pistols in the street, contrary to the rule
here. The guard threatened to put him into prison
if it ever happened again, and I sent to say he was
very welcome, if he disobeyed his orders and mine.
The Doctor has since told me that you seemed to like
to take the law in your own hands, and therefore it has
just struck me that I may have done wrong, though
I do not exactly see what you have to do with
Albanians, for this fellow is not one of those given
to Lord Sligo by the Vali Pacha, but a groom hired
by the month. If I have erred, pray tell me so, and
be assured it is through ignorance, and no disrespect
to your power, or disregard to your wishes ; and be
so good as to set the business right as soon as you
can. Only oblige me by being severe with the
Albanian, as it will save me much future trouble
with the others, who, Lord S. once told me, he should
leave under my care if he went to Persia alone."

" I wish you joy of a victory so brilliant and so
glorious to the British arms, but so useless as far
as what relates to the grand cause. The conduct of
the Spaniards has been quite as shameful as usual,
and just what I expected. As to Massena, wait a
little to see why he retreated before you are too
much elevated. I rejoice you are likely to be set
free, and I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing
you depart with a smiling face. I shall make war
against nasty Frere. Mr. Listen I am rather inclined
to think I shall like ; but it is little probable that he
will show me more kindness and attention than you

i8io-i8i2] DELIBACHES 105

have done, which, though I do quiz you sometimes,
I am perfectly sensible of, and shall ever acknowledge
with gratitude. Quiz me in return, and take one good
lesson before you go. When you are no longer a
great man, I shall speak to you with more confidence ;
you may think me strange, but I hope always a very
honourable being. Now don't crack your brain ; the
wise man speaketh in parables, so may therefore a
silly woman. Having had such good news of my
dearest brother puts me into spirits, and I could talk
nonsense for the hour. . . . You ought to see this
beautiful place " (Brusa) ; " but when no longer a
great man you might fall in love with some of these
very beautiful Turkish women, and that would be
a great sin. I am quite delighted with everything
here. Imagine ! I drank coffee the other day with
a tribe of Delibaches. I thought it would give me
an opportunity of examining these terrible people, and
if they overtook me in my ride they would not murder
me. 1 was quite right, for they all saluted me as an old
friend, and each of them mumbled a civil speech. . . .
There are great prospects of my dear Duke of York
coming in again. He is not only the best friend a soldier
ever had, but the best private friend in the world."

After more than ten months of "very pleasant
intercourse," Mr. Canning and Lady Hester had a
bitter quarrel. She, it seems, "was dying to see
Napoleon with her own eyes," and privately made
interest with the French charge d'affaires, M. de
Latour-Maubourg, to obtain a passport to France.
This plan was kept secret ; but one day, a spy
employed by the English Minister brought him word
that Lady Hester had been seen walking on the
shores of the Bosphorus with M. de Latour-Maubourg,
and he went straight to her house to demand an expla-
nation. She told him the truth, " and explained the
secrecy of the interviews by her desire to keep the

106 PASSPORT TO FRANCE [CH. in

English Minister out of the business, which she felt
might embarrass him ; but added that if Mr. Liston
or any ' old stager ' were at the Porte, she would have
no compunction in giving him trouble." This allu-
sion to his youth and inexperience — he was then but
twenty-four, ten years younger than Lady Hester —
very naturally nettled him, and he required her either
to ask the permission of His Majesty's Government,
or to await the arrival of the French Ambassador,
before seeing M. de Maubourg again. She declined
to do either; and he announced, in high dudgeon,
that neither he nor any member of the English Mission
would enter her house again. Lady Hester gave him
her hand at parting, and said it would make no
difference in her sentiments towards him.

But the following morning she sent him a copy
of the letter she had written to Lord Wellesley (in
anticipation of his taking a similar course), which
raised his exasperation to the highest pitch. It
was enclosed with the following note : " That your
Excellency may be aware that deceit forms no part
of my character, I enclose a copy of a letter to Lord
Wellesley. I wish people in England neither to blame
nor pity the situation in which you have placed me,
and if I defend myself not exactly in the way most
pleasing to you, recollect it is your conduct which
has made it necessary."

She began her letter by saying that she wished
to go to France "for her health," and that M. de
Maubourg had written for passports for her journey.
Had Mr. Adair, or one of nis character, been at the
Porte, she would have told him of her plan.

Lady Hester to Lord Wellesley

" But Mr. Canning is young and inexperienced, full
of zeal, but full of prejudice. I guessed, therefore,
what might be the line of conduct he would pursue
on such an occasion. Respecting, as I do, his many
virtues, I do not wish to quarrel with him, or appear
openly to disregard his authority, or publicly to
ridicule the very idea of any person presuming to
doubt my patriotism ; because I despise the idea of

1810-1812] QUARREL WITH S. CANNING 107

war with individuals, and also cannot but lament a
fault too common in most of our public men — that of
seeing things in the light they wish them to be, not as
they are, and trying to impose this fallacy upon the
public mind, which, when discovered, must sooner or
later destroy the degree of confidence they ought to
possess. The above reason induced me to see M. de M.
privately, who is also very young for his situation,
but which his talents fully qualify him to fill. Nothing
can have been more candid, more honourable and
delicate, than his conduct upon this occasion. He
lost no time in writing to Paris for passports, and his
answer may be expected any day.

" Not long ago, Mr. Canning's spy, who I saw was
pursuing me for some time, communicated to his
employer that he had seen M. de M. and myself
walking together upon the coast of Asia. This led
Mr. Canning to enquire into the business, the whole
of which I communicated to him, and my reasons for
having kept it a secret. He has thought it his duty
to take leave of me, and also to forbid any of those
persons belonging to him to visit me, which, as far
as it affects my comfort, is of no consequence, as they
were all horribly dull (except M. Pisani, who is a man
of information and merit); and, as far as relates to
my politics, I flatter myself that it is not in the power
of Mr. Canning or any other person to cast any reflec-
tion upon them that would be credited in this or any
other country — much less in my own.

"Although it is evident that Mr. C. has not been
educated in your Lordship's school of gallantry, yet I
give him full credit for acting from the most upright
and conscientious principles; and if his zeal has
carried him a little too far, there is no one so willing
to forgive it as I am, or so little inclined to attempt

io8 S. CANNING QUIZZED [CH. HI

to turn him from what he considers to be the execu-
tion of his duty. Affectation nor fear has in no degree
influenced my line of conduct towards him ; and if I
have acted with more moderation than is usual to me,
it proceeds from what may (though true) sound like
conceit to confess — the persuasion that Mr. Canning
and I do not stand upon equal grounds, and that he
is by no means a match for me, were I determined
to revenge what to others carries the appearance of
insult. But as he is both a religious and political
Methodist, after having appeared to doubt my love
for my country, he will next presume to teach me
my duty to my God !

" Before I conclude, I must request your Lordship
not to receive Mr. C. with dry bows and wry faces,
or allow the fine ladies to toss him in a blanket. The
best reward for his services would be to appoint him
Commander-in-Chief at home and Ambassador Extra-
ordinary abroad to the various societies for the
suppression of vice, and cultivation of patriotism.
The latter consists in putting one's self in greater
convulsions than the dervishes at the mention of
Buonaparte's name."

No man likes to be quizzed and called a prig, and
Stratford Canning was notoriously the least patient
of men; but what most galled him in Lady Hester's
letter was its tone of kindly patronage. " Nothing
more ingeniously malicious could have been devised, '
says his biographer. "A horrible vision of its going
the round of the Cabinet in a red despatch box rose
before his eyes, and he wrote to his cousin, who,
though out of office, was in close relations with Lord
Wellesley, and begged him, if Lady Hester carried
out her threat, to set him right with the Foreign
Secretary and any one else whose opinion was worth
considering. . . . George Canning wrote that so far
as he knew, it had never reached the Foreign Office."

i8io-i8ia] CONSTANTINOPLE 109

But 1 fully believe it was sent, and she mentions a
copy that went to General Oakes at Malta.

Even before the final breach, there had been a
certain amount of friction between the belligerents.

" I believe," she writes, " that C. is jealous. ... I
have made my own way with the Turks, and I have
contrived to get upon so intimate a footing, that the
Pacha's brother, brother-in-law, and Captain of the
Fleet, dined with us, accompanied by their confidential
physician. This may not sound like a compliment;
but see the Captain Pacha's brother, bending under
a tree in a public walk! He neither notices Greek,
Armenian, or Frank women of any kind, but looks at
them all as if they were sheep in a field, and they dare
not come near him, as his attendants form a circle
which they never pass, but stand and look at him for
an hour together. I must likewise tell you that C.
has been much shocked at my having gone on board
the fleet in men's clothes : a pair of over-alls, a military
great coat, and cocked hat, is so much less decent a
dress than that of a real fine lady in her shift and
gown, and half-naked besides! The Captain Pacha
said I was welcome to go, but I must change my
dress, and I certainly thought it worth while. I
closely examined everything; and as I understand a
little about a ship, it was not quite a useless visit.
. . . To give you an idea of the narrowness of this
man's " (Canning's) " mind, when I praised M. de Mau-
bourg, and said even himself could not but confess the
French charge d'affaires had never done a dirty thing,
and was considered, even by his enemies, as dis-
interested and pure, he was obliged to agree; but
added, had he been a man of principle, he could never
live under the orders of a tyrant. I said, ' What
was he or any other Frenchman to do?' He replied,

i io LORD SLIGO [CH. in

4 Leave France for England.' ' And what to do there ? '
said I. ' Live upon bread and water ! ' he answered.
God knows we have too many Frenchmen in England
already to wish for more."

Let me hasten to add that the quarrel was soon
made up. Mr. Canning bore no malice ; and when, on
leaving Constantinople, she was shipwrecked on the
island of Rhodes, he assisted her by every means in
his power, and she wrote him a grateful letter of
acknowledgment, accompanied by a little peace-offer-
ing (see p. 132).

Lady Hester to Mr. S. Canning

"March qth, 1811.

" I have received a letter from my disagreeable
cousin Wynn l (at least, every person thinks him so ;
and it is so long since I have seen him, that I almost
forget what he is like — only remember he is ugly).
W. sends me, as I had reason to believe, a present
from the Duchess of Rutland ; but, alas ! the box was
empty. He says he shall be here next month, and
then I shall make him account for having lost my
trinket. Lord Sligo we expect every day from
Smyrna. I fear he has got into a sad scrape about
the deserters he took on board his brig ; but, as he
has been involved by the lies of traders, and of
Mr. John or James the footman, I trust the naval men
will hear reason, as I am sure he intended no dis-
respect to the service, though he has been very, very
imprudent ; and it has been difficult to make him
attach sufficient importance, which he began by laugh-
ing at, and thinking fine fun. ... I find a great many
English are expected here in the spring. The weather
within these few days has been quite heavenly, and
I propose to myself great pleasure in riding a new

1 Afterwards Sir Henry Wynn, and for many years our Minister at
Copenhagen. He married my mother's sister, Hester Smith.

i8io-i8i2] BRUSA ui

horse (now breaking for me) that Bruce brought
from Asia."

Early in May she went to Brusa and spent two
happy months in that terrestrial paradise.

Lady Hester to Mr. S. Canning

"June 2nd, 1811.

" How I wish you were here to enjoy this delicious
climate and the finest country I ever beheld. Italy is
nothing to it in point of magnificence. The town of
Brusa is situated at the foot of Mount Olympus ; it
is one of the largest towns, and may be considered
the capital of Asia Minor. The houses are, like all
Turkish houses, bad in themselves, but so interspersed
with trees and mosques that the whole has a fine
effect. The view is quite delightful, over an immense
plain more rich and beautiful than anything I ever
saw, covered with trees, shrubs, and flowers of all
descriptions. The rides are charming, and the horses
better than any of those I have met out of England.
... By this time Lord Sligo will have reached Malta.
I hope you admire his Albanians ; they are not all
such frights as those he has with him. Their dress
I think extraordinarily handsome. If you leave Malta,
you must not come here, for you would fall in love if
you did. How beautiful are these Asiatic women !
They go to the bath from fifty to five hundred to-
gether; and when I was bathing the other day, the
wife of a deposed Pacha begged I would finish my
bathing at a bath half a mile off, that she might have
the pleasure of my society ; but this I declined. They
bathe with all their ornaments on — trinkets, I mean —
and when finished, they bind up their hair with flowers
and eat and talk for hours, then fumble up their faces,
all but the eyes, and sit under the trees till the evening."

ii2 THE PARTING OF THE WAYS [CH. in

Mr. North (afterwards Lord Guilford) and his
nephew, Mr. Frederick Douglas, came to stay with
her at Brusa. In July she returned to Constanti-
nople, and on August 2/th writes from Bebec, on the
Bosphorus, that she is " happy and comfortable, and
quite another creature to what I was at Malta. A
very short time will now decide to what part of the
world we shall bend our steps." She had decided not
to spend another winter at Constantinople, and if she
had received her French passports (for I need hardly
say that M. de Maubourg's application was unsuc-
cessful), would certainly have gone to Italy, for she
speaks of her "great hopes of getting to Rome—
perhaps even to France." How different the whole
course of her life might, indeed must, have been, had
she bent her steps Westwards ! " The long-promised
bridle accompanies this letter. I fear you will not
like it much, but it is of the newest fashion. There
are two sorts of bridles here, such as I send, of various
descriptions and colours, and those made for very
great men, of solid silver, weighing, some of them,
twelve or fifteen pounds, which their own stallions
can just bear the weight of during some grand pro-
cession. In the hand these bridles are the most
magnificent thing you can imagine, but they are so
confused with chains and ornaments, that they bury
a horse's head, and have little effect. I have sent a
red one to my brother, but I thought that a dark one
would more become your white horse. All those
with tassels are made with a little silk mixed with
silver and gold twist ; it looks pretty for a day, but
the heat of the horse spoils it directly, and it cannot be
cleaned. This bridle must be cleaned with lemon-juice."

Towards the end of September, the expected cousin,
Mr. Williams Wynn, arrived at Constantinople, and
paid her a visit, of which he wrote the following
account to his mother (October 4th, 1811):

Mr. Williams Wynn to his Mother

" You will, of course, expect a description of our
dear cousin, who is living with Bruce and a Doctor
at a small village on the Bosphorus, about six English
miles from this place. From the present state of

i8io-i8i2] DESCRIPTION OF LADY HESTER 113

Europe, an Englishman cannot find any society what-
ever here; her conversation is therefore of value,
though I own I have been very much disappointed
in her cleverness, for I cannot give that denomination
to abuse of everything and everybody. The day I
first saw her, I had not been in the room ten minutes
before she opened her batteries, abusing or laughing
at every individual of the family, excepting Ebrington,
Watkin, and Cholmondeley. The first she praised up
to the skies, but the last two were only well enough
in their way. I gave her as good as she brought,
and we were therefore excellent friends. She even
does me the honour to say that my foreign education
has a little counteracted the Grenville blood. I must,
however, say that at the time when she is abusing
everything which is most dear to me, she does it in
a manner that it is impossible to be angry with her,
and I believe that it proceeds more from a love of
ridiculing than from the heart. Her great hero is the
Duke of York, who, I believe, according to her, is to
be the saviour of Europe; on the other hand, the
people she most abuses are Lord Chatham and Lord
Carrington. I am surprised at her being so inveterate
against the latter, as she says even the Grenvilles are
far preferable to that contemptible set who call them-
selves Mr. Pitt's friends. She is now on the point of
leaving this place for Athens, where she expects a
passport to go to Italy and France. If she does not get
it, which is most likely, she intends to go to Syria and
Egypt. I will now have done with my cousin, though
I could fill several sheets with her eccentricities."

The passport was, as I have already said, refused.
Italy being thus out of the question, she decided to
go to Egypt, and a Greek vessel was chartered to
take the party to Alexandria. She was duly cleansed,

9

ii4 SHIPWRECKED [CH. in

provisioned, and fitted with cabins for their reception,
and they sailed from Constantinople on October 23rd.
But the stormy petrel always seemed to attend poor
Lady Hester's voyages. They were wind-bound, first
at one island, and then at another, and on Novem-
ber 23rd, exactly a month after their departure, had
got no further than Rhodes. At last a favourable
wind sprung up, and they bowled merrily along for
two days ; but on the third they were met by a furious
southerly gale, and compelled to change their course ;
and on the fourth the ship sprung a leak, and there
came the ominous cry, " All hands to the pumps ! "
They were out of order and proved of little use ; the
water gained upon them in spite of their efforts; it
blew harder and harder, and all was confusion on
deck. Lady Hester, who was below, was aroused by
the noise, and surmising their danger, dressed herself,
bade her maid put together a few necessaries, and set
to work to cheer and encourage the crew. She re-
membered there was a cask of wine on board, went
down to draw some, and distributed it among them.
Three or four of the men refused to work any more,
and throwing themselves flat on their faces, wept and
wailed to the Virgin Mary, crying, " Panagia mon !
Panagia mon ! " They were steering for Rhodes, and
a little comforted by coming in sight of the island ;
but the ship had by this time heeled gunwale down,
and was so water-logged that she did not answer the
helm. It became evident that she was sinking, and
they took to the long boat, and made for a rock they
saw a little way ahead. It was a desperate venture
in such a sea; every moment the waves broke over
them and threatened to swamp the boat ; but at last,
drenched to the skin, they succeeded in reaching the
rock, and found a cave where Lady Hester and her
maid could be placed for shelter. It was the only
available refuge from the whirling showers of spray,
and having saved nothing, they had neither food nor
water ; but they were too much worn out to think of
anything but rest, and throwing themselves down on
the wet rock, slept soundly amid " the visitation of the
winds" and the deafening roar of the sea. At mid-
night the weather moderated a little, and the captain
proposed to take the boat across to Rhodes and buy
provisions. The island was some miles off, and he

1810-1812] RHODES 115

would only consent to risk the attempt if the passen-
gers were left behind, as there could be no possible
chance for a heavily laden boat. They had no choice
but to agree, and he promised to light a fire on the
beach if he had the good fortune to get safe to land.
It may be imagined with what feelings they watched
for the signal, and welcomed it when it appeared.
But a long period of suspense was still before them.
For thirty weary hours of hunger and thirst they
awaited the captain's return, with an ever-increasing
doubt whether he would return at all. At last the
boat appeared with the provisions, but without the
captain, who had refused to come, and they were,
though with great difficulty, conveyed across to the
island. They did not land a moment too soon, for,
just as they reached the shore, a heavy sea struck the
boat, and she was presently swamped and staved.
The rain was falling in torrents, and Lady Hester and
her maid were put under cover in an old mill, but
poor Mrs. Fry soon came running out again and
declared she could not remain with her Ladyship
where there were so many rats. They found they
were still three days' journey — and that over the
roughest and wildest of paths — from the town of
Rhodes, and poor Lady Hester, having travelled
"over dreadful rocks and mountains, partly on foot
and partly on a mule, for eight hours," was laid up
by fever on the way. But her illness did not last
long, for she was able to write from Rhodes on
December igth : " My health has suffered less than I
expected. ... I have crossed the island on an ass,
going for six hours a day, which proves I am pretty
well now, at least."

She wrote to report herself both to her brother and
her London bank, and the following account of her
shipwreck was received by her solicitor, Mr. Murray :

Lady Hester to Mr. Murray

"THE ISLAND OF RHODES,

"January -2nd, 1812.

" DEAR SIR, — Before this letter reaches you, you will
have heard, in all probability, an account of my ship-
wreck from Mr. Coutts. That I am here to relate it

n6 HARDSHIPS [CH. in

is rather extraordinary, for I escaped not only a
sinking ship, but put to sea in a boat when one
could hardly have supposed it could have lived five
minutes — the storm was so great. Unable to make
the land, I got ashore, not on an island, but a bare
rock which stuck up in the sea, and remained thirty
hours without food or water. It becoming calmer the
second night, I once more put to sea, and fortunately
landed upon the island of Rhodes, but above three
days' journey from the town, travelling at the rate of
eight hours a day over mountains and dreadful rocks.
Could the fashionables I once associated with believe
that I could have sufficient composure of mind to
have given my orders as distinctly and as positively
as if I had been sitting in the midst of them, and that
I slept for many hours very sound on the bare rock,
covered with a pelisse, and was in a sweet sleep the
second night, when I was awoke by the men, who
seemed to dread that, as it was becoming calmer, and
the wind changing (which would bring the sea in
another direction), that we might be washed off the
rock before morning. So away I went, putting my
faith in that God who has never quite forsaken me in
all my various misfortunes. The next place I slept
in was a mill, upon sacks of corn; after that, in a
hut, where I turned out a poor ass to make more
room, and congratulated myself on having a bed of
straw. When I arrived (after a day of tremendous
fatigue) at a tolerable village, I found myself too ill
to proceed the next day, and was fortunate enough to
make the acquaintance of a kind-hearted, hospitable
Greek gentleman, whom misfortune had sent into
obscurity, and he insisted upon keeping me in his
house till I was recovered. At the end of a few days
I continued my journey, and arrived here, having

1810-1812] RHODES 117

suffered less than any other woman would have done
whose health was as precarious as mine has been for
so long a time. Everything I possessed I have lost ;
had I attempted to have saved anything, others would
have done the same, and the boat would have been sunk.
To collect clothes in this part of the world to dress as
an Englishwoman would be next to impossible; at least,
it would cost me two years' income. To dress as a
Turkish woman would not do, because I must not be
seen to speak to a man ; therefore I have nothing left
for it but to dress as a Turk — not like the Turks you
are in the habit of seeing in England, but as an Asiatic
Turk in a travelling dress — just a sort of silk and
cotton shirt ; next a striped silk and cotton waistcoat ;
over that another with sleeves, and over that a cloth
short jacket without sleeves or half-sleeves, beauti-
fully worked in coloured twist, a large pair of
breeches, and Turkish boots, a sash into which goes
a brace of pistols, a knife, and a sort of short sword,
a belt for powder and shot made of variegated leather,
which goes over the shoulder, the pouches the same,
and a turban of several colours, put on in a particular
way with a large bunch of natural flowers on one
side. This is the dress of the common Asiatic; the
great men are covered with gold and embroidery, and
nothing can be more splendid and becoming than their
dress. At this moment I am a wretched figure — half
a Greek, half a Turk, but most of all like a blackguard
(Gallongi), a Turkish sailor. As there is nothing
interesting in the town of Rhodes, and the Bey being
the only disagreeable Turk I ever met with, once a
slave, and now a tyrant, but not of my sort — ignorant,
sordid, and vulgar — I have left him and his city for a
little habitation on the sea coast, about three miles
distant from the town. The situation of this summer

n8 A CONTENTED MIND! [CH. in

residence is enchanting, even at this season of the
year. Let those who envied me in my greatness
alike envy me in rags; let them envy that con-
tented and contemplative mind which rises superior
to all worldly misfortunes which are independent of
the affections of the heart. Tell them I can feel
happier in wandering over wilds, observing and ad-
miring the beauties of Nature, than ever I did when
surrounded by pomp, flatterers, and fools. . . . All
my curiosities, all my discoveries, are gone to the
bottom, and many valuable ones I have made with
so much trouble. If I want a Turk, it is the Ramazan,
it is the feast of the Bairam ; he is either at prayers,
asleep, or in the bath. If I want a Greek, his shop is
shut — it is a saint's day. If I want an Armenian, it
is the same thing. The Jews are less provoking ; but,
between them all and their different languages, it
requires not a little patience and exertion .to get
through with anything out of the common way. I
have never yet received one letter from you. ... I
cannot hardly suppose that you have never written to
me, but I think you cannot have forwarded my letters
through the channel I have so repeatedly directed.
To be ignorant about poor dear Grandmama, and not
to know what is become of poor Nash,1 and if I have
the means to assist her, is really very painful to me.
William Hillier and Mr. Norman have alike disobeyed
my orders. I desired they would be sure to write to
me about Nash, and never have I had one line from
any one of them. This is gratitude ; but such has
been my fate — to be forgotten the moment I am no
longer useful. I am never low, but when I think of

1 The old nurse at Chevening. My father always spoke of her
with much affection, and paid her pension till, as he computed, she
must have been more than 100 years old. He then made enquiries,
and found she had been long dead and fraudulently represented.

1810-1812] SCIO 119

England and the monsters it contains — when I put
them out of my mind I am happy, for I have great
reason to be so ; but who do I owe my comforts to ? —
to strangers ! "

To Gen. Oakes she writes in a livelier strain :

" Bruce, Mr. Pearce, and the Doctor are quite well.
They have saved nothing; but do not think us dull,
for we (myself included) danced the Pyrrhic dance
with the peasants in the villages on our way here.

" We have lost a poor dog who was quite a treasure ;
it was so frightened and so sick, we could not get it
into the boat. I lament this every day, and little else,
except the most beautiful collection of conserves for
you and two other people — violets, roses, orange-
flowers, and every kind of fruit.

" Wynn is here, and is very kind to me. . . . Tell
Mr. Taylor I make conquests of Turks everywhere.
Here they are ten times more strict than in Con-
stantinople ; yet a Turk has lent me a house and
a bath in the middle of an orange garden where
I go to-morrow. The houses on the outside of the
walls, where the Franks live, are only fit for poultry.

" When I went on shore at Scio,1 I slept two nights
at a Turkish house, and they would not admit even
a dragoman ; but I contrived to make myself under-
stood, got an excellent breakfast, and set it all out
in my own way, which amused them of all things,
and one of their friends lent me a horse and a black

1 " Lady Hester is now wind-bound at Scio on her way to Alex-
andria, from whence she is to go to Jerusalem to fulfill a prophecy
of Brothers', that she is to be the means of establishing God's elect
there. She says she will not go there till she knows I have left it,
for fear that any branch of the Grenvilles should come under that
denomination. I can assure you that she talks of her Jerusalem
Government half in joke and half in earnest. She is the oddest
mixture I ever saw of cleverness and folly." — Mr. Wynn to his.
mother, November i4th, i8ij.

120 ORIENTAL DRESS [CH. in

slave to attend me. I do not know how it is, but
I always feel at home with these people, and can
get out of them just what I like ; but it is a very
different thing with the Greeks, who shuffle and
shuffle, and you never can depend upon them for one
moment."

The Oriental dress that Lady Hester had now
adopted, and taken such pains to describe to her
lawyer, she never again discarded. " I assure you,"
she says in one of her letters, " that if I ever looked
well in anything, it is in the Asiatic dress, quite
different from the European Turk's." To Western
eyes there was nothing peculiarly masculine about
it,1 for the long and voluminous trousers simulated
a petticoat about as well as " the divided skirt "
advocated by our dress reformers. The wearing of
weapons was not a matter of choice ; it was im-
perative for all travellers in those countries, and I
can find no mention of her ever having used them.

Other requisites besides clothes, such as medicines,
camp-equipages, stores, &c., which were not obtain-
able at Rhodes, had still to be replaced, and the Doctor
was despatched to Smyrna to procure them. He was
several weeks away, and on his return found Lady
Hester at the point of departure. Captain Henry
Hope, of the Salsette frigate, hearing of her ship-
wrecked condition, had come to offer to take her
and her party to Alexandria, and she welcomed him
as a deliverer. " Chivalry Hope he is to be called,"
she declared, " for the old knights of Malta and
Rhodes could not have deserved more praise. . . .
What we should have done without him I know
not." They joyfully embarked in the Salsette; but,
with her usual ill-luck at sea, no sooner had she set
foot on board than a storm arose, which detained
them for some days at Marmora, and they did not
arrive at Alexandria till the first days of February.

Colonel Misset, the English resident, gave them a

1 It is curious to find in the Doctor's journal, that when she was
seen riding in an English riding habit at Brusa, " it was whispered
about that she was a boy," as her dress resembled that of the pages
of the Seraglio.

i8io-i8i2] CAIRO 121

hospitable welcome, and found a house in the Frank
quarter for Lady Hester. But her first impressions
of the country were far from encouraging. "This
place I think quite hideous," she tells General Oakes,
" and if all Egypt is like it, I shall wish to quit it as
soon as possible." They only remained long enough
to make some necessary purchases, and prepare
for the journey to Cairo. How times are changed !
Now it is a few hours distant by rail ; then, it was
a toilsome progress by land and water that might
have dated from the time of the Pharaohs. Captain
Hope accompanied them as far as Rosetta. They
travelled first on donkeys, then in flat-bottomed boats
across Lake Madiah, and by one of the Canopic
branches of the Nile to Aboukir Bay; thence, coasting
along for a mile or two, they reached the entrance of
Lake Edko, which they traversed, and finally landing
at the village of Edko, again mounted donkeys and
rode to Rosetta. Here they hired two dahabeahs,
with a couple of cabins eight feet square a-piece,
to take them up the Nile, one for Lady Hester and
the faithful Fry, the other for the three gentlemen,
and sailing night and day, reached Cairo on the
fifth night.

Lady Hester's arrival caused a great sensation, for
the sight of an English lady of rank was then an
almost unprecedented event, and she was received
with much honour by the Pacha. Five of his finest
horses, splendidly caparisoned, were sent to convey
her and her party to the Ezbekieh Palace; she was
preceded by a bevy of officials bearing silver sticks —
each additional silver stick marking a grade in the
social scale — and allowed to dismount at the inner
gate. She herself had prepared with due magnificence
for the occasion, and appeared in a Tunisian costume
of purple velvet embroidered with gold, wearing two
Kashmir shawls for which she had paid £100, one
as a turban, the other as a girdle. The Pacha, who
had never seen an English lady before, received her
in a gaily decorated kiosk in the garden of his harem,
on a gorgeously embroidered divan of scarlet velvet,
and offered her, according to Oriental custom, sherbet,
coffee, and a narghileh. But the narghileh she refused,
not having yet learned to smoke. Unfortunately, none
of her letters from Cairo have been preserved, and no

122 ANOTHER ESCAPE [CH. in

record remains of their conversation. Before her de-
parture, the Pacha further honoured her by reviewing
his troops before her, and made her a present of a fine
Arab charger, which, with its superb caparisons, she
sent to the Duke of York. Another horse, given to
her by Abdul Bey, one of the courtiers, she forwarded
to Lord Ebrington by the same opportunity.

Mr. Henry Wynn,1 having crossed the desert from
Gaza, here rejoined the party, with his servant George,
whose presence of mind on one occasion saved Lady
Hester's life. They were returning from an expedition
to the Pyramids — then a formidable and even hazard-
ous undertaking, requiring not only horses, camels,
tents, provisions, &c., but a guard of soldiers — and
Lady Hester had engaged the French Mamelukes,
with their captain, as her escort. As they were being
ferried across the Nile, a plank sprung in the bottom
of the boat in which she was sitting, and the water
rushed in. They were in the middle of the river,
where the current is strongest, and the boatman, in
his consternation, lost his head and dropped his
oars. George, quick as lightning, tore off his turban,
plugged the leak, and doubling his fist in the man's
face, threatened to kill him if he did not row them
ashore. He obeyed, and they landed in safety.

Early in May they left Cairo for Rosetta, where,
with some natural doubts and misgivings, they
selected a polacca to take them to Jaffa. On this
occasion, however, the voyage, unlike her former
experiences at sea, was prosperous as well as brief.
At Jaffa, Mr. Pearce left them to take another route,
and Lady Hester commenced her long travels on
horseback through Syria and the Holy Land. She
rode in true Oriental style, with two Sai'ses walking
at her horse's head. Her saddle and bridle, both
Egyptian, were of crimson velvet embroidered in
gold, and her travelling costume, likewise brought
from Cairo, consisted of a satin vest with long

1 He writes to his mother (April, 1812): "Notwithstanding I
partly agree with you in what you say of our cousin, I was very glad
to find her here ; I had constant society in her house, and to me
she made herself very agreeable. She has many faults, but has, I
believe, an excellent heart. . . . We went a very large party to the
Pyramids. . . . Lady Hester attempted to go in, but the undertaking
was too great even for her, who is superior in exertion to any woman
I ever saw,"

1810-1812] ISHMAEL BEY 123

sleeves, open from the elbow, and a red cloth jacket
and trousers, both again heavy with gold embroidery ;
the latter full enough "to form, by their numerous
folds, a very beautiful drapery." Over this, when
riding, she wore a white abba, or burnous,1 and her
turban was a Kashmir shawl.

No letters of hers are forthcoming till the following
September ; but I found among her papers part of a
MS. journal kept by Mr. Bruce. It hardly ever
mentions her, and deals chiefly with historical,
geographical, and statistical details, describing what
is now the beaten track of tourists to Jerusalem,
Bethlehem, Mount Carmel, Hai'fa, and Acre. But
now and again, what my Scotch nurse used to call
"th* auld Adam," peeps out, as when he speaks of
" the infamous conduct " of the Aga of Jaffa, " whose
insolence is only to be equalled by his ignorance, and
his ignorance by his presumption." What he really
did we are not told ; but whatever it was it drew
down upon him the full measure of Lady Hester's
wrath, and they were not a little uneasy when, at
their next station, Ramleh, they found that he had
followed them there, and sent for the Aga of the
place, who had shown himself very friendly. Surely
ne must have come to complain of them ? to exact
satisfaction for the " indignation " so forcibly ex-
pressed ? But it turned out that he had come on
quite a different errand, and only intreated his colleague
at Ramleh " to use every means in his power to pacify
the English lady."

At Jerusalem they came across a man whose story
has of late years been discredited, and his very
existence questioned — the one Mameluke who escaped
from the massacre of his comrades at Cairo. His
name was Ishmael Bey, and he spoke a little English,
having spent two months in England with his brother
Elfi. He told Mr. Bruce that " his escape from Cairo
was quite miraculous. When the Mamelukes were
enclosed within the gates of the Citadel, and the
Albanians had begun to fire upon them, he leaped
over a very high wall and galloped to his house. He
then changed his clothes, provided himself with
money, hired some dromedaries, and went into the

1 One of these, said to have been worn by her, is in my pos-
session.

124 BURCKHARDT [CH. in

desert. At night, when he was asleep, the perfidious
Arabs (who were his guides), taking advantage of his
defenceless situation, attacked him with sabres and
with bludgeons, wounded him in the head, the neck,
and the sides, and left him for dead. In this state he
was found by a humane Arab, who discovered in him
some signs of life. He took him to his house and
provided him with what his scanty store could furnish.
He remained with him near six weeks, until his
wounds were healed. In the interval (through the
means of the Arab) he contrived to have some com-
munication with Cairo. He procured some clothes
and a little money, and then went into Syria. He
there claimed the protection of Suleiman Pacha of
Acre, who has given him a place of refuge, and allows
him a miserable pittance. His situation is very
critical, as the Turks do not respect the laws of
hospitality. As long as Suleiman Pacha and
Mohammed AH are enemies he is secure ; but the
moment this enmity ceases he will be made the
sacrifice. He wished to go to London or Constanti-
nople, and place himself under British protection."
Lady Hester was warmly interested in him. She
assisted him with money, and corresponded with Mr.
Canning on his behalf.1

Again, at Nazareth, Mr. Bruce was thunderstruck
at hearing himself addressed, in good English, by a
bare-legged Syrian peasant with a long beard, who
proved to be the celebrated traveller Burckhardt. He
passed as Shaykh Ibrahim, and was dressed in the
coarse cotton shirt and woollen abba of the country ;
but he could not disguise " his broad German face and
blue eyes." Lady Hester, to whom he was introduced,
did not like him.

She had an accident as she was leaving Nazareth.
Her horse slipped up and fell with her, injuring one
of her legs so severely that she had to be carried back
to her lodging at the Franciscan convent, and was
detained there a week.

From Acre she proceeded to Sayda ; and here,
immediately on her arrival, she received an invitation
from the Prince of the Mountain to visit him at
Dayr-el-Kamar, in the Lebanon. She accepted with
eagerness, for she had long wished and purposed to
1 See page 132.

1810-1812] THE DRUSES 125

see something of the Druse country, and make the
acquaintance of its singular and mysterious people.
As soon as the Emir knew of her coming, he sent
down no less than twelve camels, twenty-five mules,
and four horses, for her use, with an armed escort for
her protection. Two days before she left Sayda, on
July 2pth, she was delighted to see the Salsette frigate
enter the harbour. " Captain Hope came to the coast
to look after me," she writes to the General, "and
gave me your kind message. He is a very worthy
young man, and has been more kind to me than I could
nave thought it possible for a man, who was a stranger
to me at Rhodes, could have been."

The ride to Dayr-el-Kamar was over rugged paths,
such as would, to English ideas, have made the Emir's
palace inaccessible on horseback. On their way they
passed Djoun, where — little as she then could have
imagined it possible — she was to pass the last twenty
years of her life. The Emir received her with great
distinction, and she remained with him a month,
visiting his palace at Btedyn, and that of the Shaykh
Beshyr at Makhtara, three or four hours distant from
Dayr-el-Kamar. These palaces were in no way
remarkable, but the latter was famous for its fountains,
and a stream of clear, cool water had been made to
flow through all its rooms. She was much pleased
with her stay.

" I must now," she says in one of her letters,
11 speak to you of the Druses, that extraordinary and
mysterious people that inhabit the Mount Lebanon.
I hope, if ever I see you again, to be able to reach
Mr. North" (Lord Guilford) "in my account of
them. I will only now mention one fact, which I can
state as positive, having been an eye-witness to it,
it is that they eat raw meat. I purchased of a Druse
an immense sheep, the tail weighing eleven pounds,
and desired it to be taken to a village, where I ordered
the people to assemble and eat. When I arrived the
sheep was alive ; the moment it was killed, it was
skinned and brought in raw upon a sort of dish made

126 SAYD SULEIMAN [CH. in

of matting, and in less than half an hour it was all
devoured. The women eat of it as well as the men.
The pieces of raw fat they swallowed were really
frightful.

" I understand feeling my ground so well with
savage people, that I can ask questions no other
person dares to put to them ; but it would not be proper
to repeat here those I asked even the sages, and still
less their answers. Any one who asks a religious
question may be murdered without either the Emir
Beshyr (the Prince of the Mountain) or the Shaykh
Beshyr (the Governor) being able to punish the
offender.

" Nothing ever equalled the honours paid to me by
these men. The Prince is a mild, amiable man ; but
the Governor has proved a Lucifer, and I am the first
traveller he ever allowed to walk over his palace,
which has been the scene of several massacres. The
two days I spent with him I enjoyed very much, and
you will be surprised at it when I tell you that he
judged it necessary to make one of his chief officers
taste out of my cup before I drank, for fear of poison ;
but I am used to that ; yet this man upon his knees
before me looked more solemn than usual."

From Dayr-el-Kamar she had written to announce
her coming to the Pacha of Damascus, Sayd Suleiman,
who had been Sword-bearer to the Sultan Selim, and
he had sent one of his pages with a courteous invita-
tion in reply. She was, however, informed that she
must wear a veil, as Damascus was one of the most
fanatical towns in Turkey; the scandal of seeing a
woman in men's clothes, and unveiled, would be very
great, and she would certainly be insulted. But any
suggestion as to what she should, or should not, do,
invariably roused Lady Hester's opposition. She
declared she would enter Damascus in broad day-
light, dressed as she was, and unveiled— and she did.

i8io-i8ia] DAMASCUS 127

" I must first mention," she writes to Lord Sligo,
"my entry at Damascus, which was one of the most
singular and not one of my least exploits, as it was
reckoned so dangerous, from the fanaticism of the
Turks in that town. However, we made a triumphal
entry, and were lodged in what was reckoned a very
fine house of the Christian quarter, which I did not
at all approve of. I said to the Doctor, ' I must take
the bull by the horns and stick myself under the
minaret of the Great Mosque.' This was accomplished,
and we found ourselves, for three months, in the most
distinguished part of the Turkish quarter. I went
out in a variety of dresses every day, to the great
astonishment of the Turks ; but no harm happened.
A visit to the Pacha on the night of the Ramazan was
magnificent indeed. Two thousand attendants and
guards lined the staircase, ante-chamber, &c. The
streets were all illuminated, and there were festivities
at all the coffee houses. The message of invitation
was accompanied by two fine Arab horses, one of
which I mounted ; but I am sorry to say they are both
dead of the glanders."

Again, in another letter :

" All I can say about myself sounds like conceit,
but others could tell you I am the oracle of the place,
and the darling of all the troops, who seem to think
I am a deity because I can ride, and because I wear
arms ; and the fanatics all bow before me, because the
Dervishes think me a wonder, and have given me a
piece of Mahomet's tomb ; and I have won the heart
of the Pacha by a letter I wrote him from Dayr-el-
Kamar. Hope will tell you how I got on upon the
coast, and if he could make anything of the Pacha of

iz8 MELEKI (THE QUEEN) [CH. m

Acre, his Ministers, or the rest of them, who were all
at my feet. I was even admitted into the library of
the famous Mosque, and fumbled over the books at
pleasure, books that no Christian dare touch or even
cast their eyes upon."

Far from being attacked or insulted, she was treated
with extraordinary deference. Crowds waited at her
door to see her get upon her horse. Coffee was
poured out on the road before her as she passed.
She was saluted as Meleki (the Queen), and all rose
to their feet as she entered the bazar — an honour
generally accorded only to the Pacha or Mufti. Yet
at this very time, no native Christian could venture
to leave the quarter assigned to him on horseback,
or even show himself on foot in a conspicuous gar-
ment or turban, without running a good chance of
having his bones broken by some zealous fanatic or
other.

Lady Hester's next object was to see Palmyra.
She had set her heart upon this expedition, all the
more as it was generally pronounced to be impractic-
able. Three Englishmen only had ever been known
to reach the place, and of these one returned stripped
to his shirt, though they travelled in the humble guise
of pedlars. It was out of the jurisdiction of the Pacha,
in the hands of the plundering Bedouins, and twenty
leagues of waterless desert had to be crossed to get
there.

But difficulties and dangers were only incentives
to Lady Hester, and sounded in her ears as the
trumpet notes of a challenge. On September 3Oth
she writes to General Oakes that she is going :

" Mr. North offered money, and used all the interest
he had to accomplish getting there, but in vain ; but
/ have succeeded. I cannot set off under a week;
but my camels from the desert have arrived, and I
hope all will do well. Everybody is surprised at my
courage, as above eighty thousand Arabs will be on
their march in a fortnight to winter quarters, and I

i8io-i8i2] DAMASCUS 129

have determined to go straight into one of the largest
Bedouin camps. . . . From Palmyra I go to Aleppo,
and . from Aleppo to Antioch, where I pass the
winter."

But she reckoned without her host, for serious
disturbances broke out in the interval.

Lady Hester to General Oakes

" October \ith, 1812.

" I am here still, not liking to stir till I see a little
what turn things take. . . . Every day a battle is
expected. A report also has been in circulation that
fifty thousand Wahabees are within four days' journey
of this city ; but I do not believe it. It takes rise from
a letter from Mecca to the Pacha, saying several
thousand dromedaries mounted by Wahabees have
set off, they know not where, but not improbably for
this place, which they once before attempted to take,
but were driven back, after having burnt and ran-
sacked every village upon the road. Why this con-
cerns me is for this reason : the strongest tribe of
Bedouin Arabs — my friends — who do not like the
present Pacha, will probably join any party against
him, and there will be a fine confusion in the desert,
as well as here, and the roads in every direction will
be filled with Delebaches, &c. These men are more
dreaded in every part of Turkey than you can
imagine, as they stick at nothing. But, luckily for
me, I am well known to some thousands, who have
been in the habit of seeing me with their chief visiting
their horses ; he has visited me accompanied by some
of them, and they have everywhere treated me with
the greatest civility, even when their chief has not
been with them, so I have less to fear than any one
else. But yet, when such disturbances take place,

10

i3o THE PRINCE OF THE MOUNTAIN [CH. in

few are safe. But should the worst come to the
worst, I shall take fifty of them and set off to my
friend Emir Beshyr, the Prince of the Mountain,
where I shall be quite safe. He has one hundred
thousand troops at his disposal, which he can assemble
in three days, and nothing was ever so kind as he has
been to me ; therefore, hear what you may, believe me
to be better off than any one else. The Bey who
commands the Delebaches took a great fancy to me
when at Cairo, and everything he can command is at
my disposal, I know; he is a simple, honest soldier,
and has no intrigue about him at all, and is extremely
beloved by the troops. It is a good thing that old
North is safe off, for he would be in a sad fright. I
am not at all, knowing my own presence of mind
under all circumstances, and that I have excellent
friends in this country. Be perfectly easy about me ;
my good luck will not forsake me when any confusion
takes place."

She adds in a P.S. :

" Pray do not put any women or fools into a fright
upon the state of things in this country ; besides, to
tell the truth is here often the greatest danger one
can run."

Lady Hester to Mr. S. Canning

" I heard from Captain Hope, whom I saw a few
months ago on the coast, that a letter which I had
sent him by a janissary from Damietta, he had never
received, and in this letter was enclosed one for you,
expressing my thanks for the kind attention you had
shown me after the shipwreck. You, I am afraid,
would be shocked were I to give you a description
of myself; but it is a happy thing for me that I can

1810-1812] DAMASCUS 131

make necessity a pleasure. In Egypt, the Pacha re-
viewed 5,000 cavalry expressly to please me, and his
women who saw me (through their little peep holes)
ride into the court of the harem upon one of the
Pacha's scampering horses, were in ecstasy, and sent
down a tribe of black gentlemen to welcome, as they
thought, Toucane Pacha, Mahomet Ali's son, who is,
in fact, at Mecca. I liked Egypt extremely, notwith-
standing the narrow streets, the stinks, and bad eyes ;
but had I been dressed as a woman I should not have
liked it at all, for I should not have seen anything.
In all Syria I have been received with great hospitality
by Turks, Jews, and Arabs. This place is beautiful,
but yet not to be compared with Brusa, and the people
by far the least well-looking of any I have seen in the
Sultan's dominions. In a few days I set off for
Palmyra, dressed as the son of an Arab chief, with
my abba, leather belt, and horse-hair cord round my
head, mounted on an Arab horse the Pacha has given
me. I refused his Delebaches, they might get me
into a scrape, as I am going to visit a tribe of about
40,000 Arabs, and to meet 100,000 upon their march
to winter quarters. With these people I am quite at
my ease ; I have some very good friends amongst
them, and I have no doubt I shall do very well. The
son of a chief offered me the other day his own fine
horse ; but how could I accept all that a man had of
valuable in the world ? I thanked him, and said I
would give his tent the preference to any other, as
I felt great confidence in him ; with this he seemed
much pleased, for they have been all disputing who
shall escort me, and since the great battle in which
100,000 horse took the field it is very dangerous to
make yourself over to either party, because you might
run the risk of being cut to pieces by the hostile

132 ISHMAEL BEY [CH. in

tribe; but I go with a chief who plays into the hands
of both, and I shall be friends with all, till I see which
I like best, then I shall declare myself for that tribe.
I am quite delighted with these people, and I seem to
take their fancy.

" I remember you once told me that you never took
presents from ladies, but I am not a lady, but a poor
Bedouin, therefore you will not refuse this little tribute
of my respect which I offer you. My slight acquaint-
ance with Mr. Knight prevents my writing to him,
but from all you have told me of his generosity and
humanity, I think I may venture to request you will
give him this message, that I have discovered in
retirement the only poor Bey (the brother of Elfi
Bey) who escaped being massacred at Cairo by leaping
over the wall into the ditch of the Citadel. He has
not a sixpence nor a friend upon earth, and is in
hourly dread of losing his head, which Mahomet AH
(missing it amongst those of the other Beys which
were brought to him) offered a great price for, and
no one has courage to protect this poor man. If
Mr. Knight would humanely collect a little money
for him he would be doing one of the kindest acts he
ever did in his life ; but it must be remitted to him
very secretly, unless he could be ensured an asylum
and a subsistence in England, otherwise it might risk
his life. If a sum was sent to General Oakes at Malta,
and he would inform me of it, I would, according to
circumstances, recommend to him means of conveying
it safe. The minds of men are now become so
hardened, so interested, so cowardly, that, generally
speaking, it would be deemed right to leave this poor
wretch to his fate, for fear of displeasing the all-
powerful Mahomet Ali. Mahomet AH was civiler to
me than he ever was to anybody in his life, he always

1810-1812] DAMASCUS 133

received me standing. I rode with him, paid him
visits when I chose, where I chose, and at my own
hour ; I talked to him for hours together, and every-
thing I asked was done. But did this make me mean ?
No ! I visited the widow of Mourad Bey ; I was on
terms of great intimacy with all the wives and widows
of the Mamelukes who were murdered or who fled ;
and I gave him myself an account of my visits.
Mourad Bey's widow is the most charming woman
(though not young) I ever knew, the picture of a
captive queen, with extraordinary talents, the tenderest
heart, and the most affectionate manner. I should
like to return to Cairo, if it was only to see this
woman, for whom I have a real friendship and admira-
tion. I know you have much zeal in a bad cause, if
you have the same in a good one, the poor Mameluke
ought to pray for you and your friend.

" What did I tell you once, that we ruined every
country we interfered with. Look at Russia, what
have we not brought upon her! I have laughed at
you and scolded you, but I must ever wish you well,
because I believe you to be an honest man, a rare thing
in these times.

"Yours sincerely,

" H. L. S.

" I hoped I had forgotten your cousin, but my
blood boiled the other day when I read in an old
newspaper his friendship for Hawkesbury, a reptile
he used to despise. Believe me, I should be sorry
to hurt your feelings, but do not be led to ruin as
he (Mr. C.) has been."

CHAPTER IV

DAMASCUS — HAMAR — PALMYRA — LATAKIA — MAR ELIAS —
MISHMUSHY — BAALBEC — ACRE — JAFFA

1812-1816

THE threatened invasion Lady Hester had mentioned
to General Oakes proved to be a false alarm.

Lady Hester to General Oakes

• " The Wahabees (which were the subject of
my last letter) have not been heard of near this
town ; it is said that a small number of them have
arrived at Palmyra, but that is of no consequence.
Whether it was the report of their being upon the
road to this place, or that the Pacha was unable to
settle the dispute with his troops, which induced him
to send a positive order to an old figure like Sir
David " (Dundas) " to come here directly (the head of
everything military in Syria), 1 know not; but this
sensible, popular, and active old fellow suddenly
appeared, and was shortly after commanded to take
a strong body of troops, and go over all the Pachalic
of Damascus instead of the Pacha. During the time
he was here, he expressed a great wish to make my
acquaintance, and that I should visit him. ' For,' said
he, ' I shall be very jealous of my young chief if she
does not.' Knowing the state of things, the rebellious
spirit of the troops, their exultation at his arrival, &c.,
I1 'considered this visit an awful thing, yet I was

134

1812-1816] DAMASCUS 135

determined to go, as everything military seemed to
have set their heart upon it.

" I first was obliged to ride through a yard full of
horses, then to walk through several hundred, perhaps
a thousand, Delebaches, and then to present myself
to no less than fifty officers and grandees, the old
chief in the corner, and my friend the young Bey
(Youseff Pacha's son) next to him, who rose to give
me his place. I remained there about an hour. The
old fellow was so delighted with me, that he gave me
his own house upon the borders of the desert for as
long a time as I choose to inhabit it ; he offered me
a hundred Delebaches to escort me all over Syria;
he sent off an express to put, as he said, his most
confidential officer under my command, that nothing
I asked for was to be refused. In short, nothing
could equal his civility ; besides, it was accompanied
with a degree of heartiness, which you seldom meet
with in a Turk. The next day he sent me a very fine
little two-year-old Arab to train up in my own way.

" The chief of forty thousand Arabs, Mohanna El-
Fadel, arrived here about the same time, to get four
thousand camels and several thousand sheep released,
which the Pacha had seized. His sons have been
my friends ever since I came here ; but as the father
is reckoned as harsh as he is cunning, I little thought
to manage him as I have done. He and his eldest
son and about twenty-five Arabs dined with me, and
were all enchanted; and the Meleki, or Queen, is in
the mouth of every Arab, both in Damascus and the
desert. As to the Wahabees, Mohanna assures me
that, as one of his family, he shall guarantee me with
his life, and whether I meet or do not meet with them
it is the same thing. To see this extraordinary people
is what I wish, but not in the town or environs of

136 A TARTARAVAN [CH. iv

Damascus, to be confounded with the crowd of those
they wish to injure.

" Bruce and Mr. Barker " (the Consul-General) " are
now upon their road from Aleppo, because they choose
to take it into their heads I must go with a caravan
to Palmyra. No caravan goes the road I intended to
go ; and if it had, as I told them, nothing should
persuade me to join one. This put them into a
fright, so they are coming with a wire thing, a
tartaravan, which Mr. Barker pronounces necessary,
but which all the Consuls in the universe shall never
persuade me to get into. What an absurd idea, in
case of danger to be stuck upon a machine, the
tartaravangers running away, and leaving you to the
mercy of two obstinate mules ! The swiftest horse
one can find is the best thing, and what the Arabs
often owe their lives to. My second messenger, saying
more positively than the first that, whether they come
or not, I would have nothing to do with a tartaravan
or caravan, had only left this place three days when
the caravan between Horns and Damascus, composed
of several hundred persons and fifty armed men, was
attacked by Arabs, and sixteen men killed. Who is
right, I or the Consul-General ?

" The Pacha answers for my safety, so do the chiefs
of the Delebaches, and so do the Arabs ; but they do
not answer for rich, cowardly merchants, who are left
to take care of themselves. By this time Barker must
be half-way from Aleppo, therefore it is right I should
think about setting off to meet them at Horns. Four
armed men is all I shall take, just to keep a watch
about the tents at night, and to have an eye upon
the horses, that no stray robber may make off with
them. As to great tribes, &c., I am perfectly secure
with them, I know.

1812-1816] DAMASCUS 137

" During my residence here, I have made a great
number of very pleasant acquaintances, and have seen
all the most famous harems. I believe I am the only
person who can give an account of the manner in
which a great Turk is received by his wives and
women. A particular friend of mine, who has four
wives and three mistresses, took me to see them
himself. None of his wives sat down in his presence,
or even came up to the raised part of the room where
we sat, except to serve his pipe and give him coffee.
When he invited me to a dinner, apparently for fifteen
or twenty people, I of course thought the poor
women were to eat ; but not at all, they only presented
him with what he wanted from the hands of the slaves,
and never spoke but when he asked some question.
Yet this is one of the most pleasant and good-natured
men I know, and with me behaves just like anybody
else, and is full as civil and attentive as another man ;
but in this instance he does not consider his dignity
lowered.

" The other day I was paying a visit to the wife of
a very great Effendi (who, though not the most
agreeable, is perhaps the cleverest man I knew here),
not less than fifty women were assembled in the
harem to see me, when in came the lord and master —
all put on their veils except his wife and his own
women, and he made a sign, and all retired. He then
told me he had sent for my little dragoman, who
shortly appeared. We talked some time and then he
proposed dining. He had led me into a beautiful
court paved with coloured marbles, with fountains
playing among the orange-trees, and in a sort of alcove
we found dinner prepared, or rather supper, for it was
at sunset. Everything was served in high style by
black female slaves, and a black gentleman. Immense

138 TURKISH SPLENDOUR [CH. iv

gilt candlesticks, with candles nearly six feet high,
were set on the ground, and great illumination of
small elegant lamps suspended in clusters in different
parts of the court. The proud man talked a great
deal, and kept my little dragoman nearly four hours
on his knees, having fetched a great book to talk
astronomy, upon which he asked me ten thousand
questions. In short, he kept me there till nearly
ten o'clock, an hour past the time which, if any one
is found in the streets, they are to have their heads
cut off— such is the Pacha's new decree. All the gates
were shut, but all opened for me, and not a word said.
The Pacha cuts off a head or two nearly every day ;
but yet I do not think he has added much to his own
security, for he is by no means liked, nor does he
command half so much as my friend the old
Delebache.

" What surprises me so much is the extreme civility of
the Turks to a Christian, which they detest much more
here than in any other part of the Sultan's dominions.
A woman in man's clothes, a woman on horseback —
everything directly in opposition to their strongest
prejudices, and yet never a smile of impertinence, let
me go where I will. If it was as it is in England,
it would be quite impossible to get through with it
all. Like Dr. Pangloss, I always try to think that
everything is for the best. If I had not been ship-
wrecked I should have seen nothing here. If I had
been born a man instead of a woman I could not have
entered all the harems as I have done, and got ac-
quainted with all the Turkish customs, and seen all
that is to be seen of most magnificent — for a Turk's
splendour is in his harem. The rooms, the dresses,
the whole air of luxury, is not to be described.

" Adieu ! my [dear General. I have written you a

i8i2-i8i6] DAMASCUS 139

long letter, because I thought my last might have put
you in a fright. Had the Wahabees come here it
would have been no joke, at least for the inhabitants
of this town, for they burn and destroy all before them.
" When you have read this, will you enclose it to
Lord Ebrington, who is so good as always to feel
anxious about me, and I have no time to write to him

now."

Lady Hester to General Oakes

" DAMASCUS,

"November I2//&, 1812.

" Bruce and Mr. Barker arrived here about the ist ;
the latter has been laid up with a fever ever since,
and I have given up my journey to the desert for
the present, as the Pacha insists upon sending eight
hundred or one thousand men with me, and the
expense would be ruin ; but I am going off to Horns
to-morrow, and in the course of the winter shall
contrive to go in some way or other.

" It seems very cross to be angry at people being
anxious about you, but had Bruce and Mr. Barker
made less fuss about my safety, and let me have
perfectly my own way, I should have been returned
by this time from Palmyra. But this, and the state
of the country, I do not wish to be the conver-
sation of Malta, for it might be scribbled back again
here by some of the merchants. Yet I cannot but
regret that (for I had leave to dig and do everything
I pleased at Palmyra) chance having put such extra-
ordinary power in my hands, it has been lost by
mismanagement. It is not here as in other parts of
the world ; if you only go a mile to the right instead
of to the left, which you have not previously bargained
to do, your camels leave you, your guards won't stir
out of their district, you must pay them four times

i4o DAMASCUS [CH. iv

their price to induce them to go on. Therefore it was
very fine and very natural to write every three days
from Aleppo, we will meet here, then there, and to
make fifty changes, and to express fifty fears. For
people who did not know the country it might be ex-
pected, but those who did ought to have been aware it
would have been taken advantage of, which has been
the case.

" We have no plague here at present, but I suppose
it will come when goods arrive from Constantinople ; it
is said it is already suspected in Egypt, and then
it generally comes here. But there will be no
possibility of leaving this country till the spring, as
no English ships come to the coast in the winter, and
we have had enough of Greek vessels. I, for one,
have little apprehension of the plague; all in this
world rests with Providence, and over-caution ever
exposes persons more to danger than remaining
quiet.

" I have sought in vain for some good thing to send
you from hence, but can find nothing; but I have
ordered some wild boar hams to be made, which you
will receive in the course of the winter. Bruce ordered
some of the famous Vino d'Oro of Mount Lebanon ;
when the casks are well seasoned, and an opportunity
offers, it shall be sent to Malta. He hates this place,
as I thought he would, but must remain here till
Mr. Barker is well enough to set off. Aleppo he
also thought abominable. I knew I should dislike
Aleppo if I went there, because it is full of vulgar
people ; but here there are chiefly great Turks, and,
as I get on very well with them, I rather like the
place than otherwise, but think it very unwholesome
from the quantity of water and trees in and about the
town, but very beautiful in its way, but it is not the

1812-1816] HAMAR 141

way I like. Brusa and the banks of the Bosphorus
for me — enchanting scenes that I think upon with
delight."

On leaving Damascus, Lady Hester originally
intended to go to Aleppo, and Mr. Bruce had been
there as a pioneer to see whether the place was likely
to suit her, and what accommodation it afforded. Her
directions to him are characteristic :

" Make Mr. Barker aware that I am an extra-
ordinary person, and like nothing other people like.
If I can only have a horse — a good one — a bath, and
some good bread, it is all I wish, provided the climate
is a good one, and that I am not teased, as I have
been finely here."

His report was unfavourable, and she next dates
her letters from " Hamar, on the Orontes, where,"
writes Mr. Bruce, " we spent a most disagreeable
winter, the coldest that had been known in Syria for
thirty years."

Lady Hester to General Oakes

"January 25^, 1813.

" I have been obliged to give up my long intended
journey to Palmyra for the present, for it would not
have been prudent to undertake it from Damascus. I
now can understand why the Pacha's man, into whose
hands I was to be consigned, would take one thousand
men, because the Arab chief had threatened to cut
off his beard and strip all his people naked if he took
me at all. The honour, the Arab said, should be his,
as the desert was his. In the spring, however, we
mean to try it again, and hope to succeed.

" When Bruce was nursing Mr. Barker, I made an
experiment on the good faith of the Arabs. I went
with the great chief, Mohanna El-Fadel, into the
desert for a week, and marched three days with their

142 CAMP IN THE DESERT [CH. iv

encampment. I was treated with the greatest respect
and hospitality, and it was, perhaps, altogether the
most curious sight I ever saw — horses and mares fed
upon camel's milk, Arabs living upon little else,
except a little rice, and sometimes a sort of bread,
the space around me covered with living creatures,
twelve thousand camels coming to water from one
tribe only. The old poets from the banks of the
Euphrates, singing the praises and the feats of ancient
heroes ; children quite naked ; women with lips dyed
light blue and their nails red, and hands all over
flowers and designs of different kinds ; a chief who
is obeyed like a great king ; starvation and pride so
mixed, that I really could not have had an idea of it ;
even the cloths 1 presented to the sons of Mohanna
they could not carry, indeed hold, but called a black
slave to take them. However, I have every reason to
be perfectly contented with their conduct towards me,
and I am the Queen with them all.

" We came to this place to be near the desert, and
to learn a little of what is going on there from good
authority — the Arabs being still at war, it is necessary
to be aware of their proceedings. Last month the
weather was delightful, but of late it has snowed, and
so much rain has fallen, that not a house in the place
is habitable ; every room is a pond, and there is no
communication between one part of the town and the
other, from the Orontes having overflowed, firing very
scarce, and everybody very miserable. A village a
mile off has been half-destroyed, and fifty persons
killed, either by the falling of the houses or drowned.

" Not long ago a body of Albanians, by the order of
the Pacha, entered this town, took the Governor out
of his bed, put him in chains, and carried him off and
seized all his property, and also every fine horse they

1812-1816] HAMAR 143

could lay their hands upon. A very showy horse
Suleiman Pacha of Acre had given me I had given to
the Doctor, and it was waiting for him before the door
of a public bath ; the Albanians were marching off
with that also, although told that it belonged to a
Frank, and not a Turk. One, however, asked, ' Is the
Frank one of the Queen's people?' Upon being
answered in the affirmative, he said, ' Take the horse
to the stable, I shall not touch it; but some of our
people may, not knowing to whom it belongs.' What
I have before told you about myself I know, my dear
General, looks like conceit, but it is true, and it is
something to have one's people and things respected
at a moment when no legislative power exists in a
place, and every one is in fear and trembling.

" As soon as the weather mends Mulla Ismael, the
powerful Delebache, will return from Damascus ; he is
a great friend of mine, and I shall go out to meet him
in the Turkish way — it will be a compliment to him,
and, besides, make me personally known to those of
his troops who have not seen me before. He is a very
jolly Turk, and has four wives here, and, I believe,
fifty women — so many, that I cannot count them ; they
are all very good to me, and less shut up than any
women I ever saw in this country. No Pacha has
ever yet succeeded in cutting off this man's head,
though many have tried ; but he is too powerful, and
the Arabs are too fond of him. He has taken refuge
among them twice, and he now feeds every Arab that
comes into Hamar as a mark of his gratitude. ... I
received above one hundred pages from dearest James
altogether; he last wrote when just embarking for
England with his General. I find Lord Wellington
intends hereafter (on his return to Spain) to place him
under my old friend Colonel Gordon, which I shall

144 DIVERS COSTUMES [CH. iv

be very glad of if he is obliged to leave Sir T.
Graham."

The following letter was addressed to Elizabeth
Williams' married sister at Malta :

" HAMAR (a very quizzical town upon the Orontes,
on the border of the desert).

"January 22nd, 1813.

" DEAR MRS. FERNANDES, — Your kind and very
entertaining letter only reached me a month ago, at
this place, though it bears the date of the 6th of April
last. This, and all my other letters were detained at
Smyrna, as they did not like to send them during the
height of the plague. Upon my arrival at Constanti-
nople ages ago, I heard you were gone to England,
and thinking that a letter, like a leaf out of a volume
of travels, would not much interest Mr. Fernandes,
and that he would not have time to answer it without
inconveniencing himself by so doing, I did not write.
Last year I heard from Captain Beaufort of your
return to Malta, but in the miserable state I was in,
I had no inclination to write any letters but those
absolutely necessary. Since that time I have never
been quiet in any one place, and have had so much to
do, as you may imagine in a country where one must
have two interpreters, one to speak Turkish, another
for Arabic ; and even the latter language differs so
much in its pronunciation, that that spoken in Egypt is
hardly understood here. You have heard, I suppose,
that I am dressed as a man ; sometimes as Chief of
Albanians, sometimes as a Syrian soldier, sometimes
as a Bedouin Arab (the famous robbers in the desert),
and at other times like the son of a Pacha. The dress
of the great is like something in a play, and in fact

1812-1816] BEDOUIN DRESS 145

much more decent than that of our fine ladies ; that of
the soldiers as much so, only they wear arms ; the
Bedouin's quite ridiculous. I will try and describe it,
and will begin by the head. A square handkerchief
made of coarse cotton and silk, folded from corner to
corner, this put over a red nightcap, or skull crown,
as if to protect it from a shower of rain, with one
corner behind, and one on each side, like an old-
fashioned wig; round the head, to bind it on, are
several rows of thick cord, as big as two fingers, made
of horse or camel's hair, put round three or four times.
A shirt, a pair of large drawers, and a thing of the
coarsest materials, sometimes cotton (white), or some-
times silk (red), not unlike a bedgown, fastened with
a leather belt, over that a pelisse of curly white sheep-
skin, the leather dressed white, or orange colour, or
copper colour, and over that a sort of immense
cloak with armholes (called abba), made of a sort
of carpeting, of two different sorts, one with
stripes of black and white, six inches wide, or
a white sort, with gold on the right shoulder, which
is the kind worn by the sons of great chiefs,
and that which I wear; then a large pair of yellow
boots, and a lance twelve feet long decorated with
black feathers. This figure am I, now writing to
you. It is the only dress to wear travelling here in
winter, when you live in tents, or houses, less weather-
proof than those are I have been obliged to inhabit
upon the borders of the desert. At Cairo and Damas-
cus I was very smart in the Turkish way. I have
seen at the latter place what no other traveller has
seen — the harems of the great men. The magnificence
of them is not to be described, nor the number and
size of the apartments; the court of one of them really,
I think, the size fully of Hanover Square, with fountains
ii

146 HORSEMANSHIP [CH. iv

playing in the middle, and all paved with coloured
marble, exquisitely beautiful. The Pacha of Egypt,
the Pachas of Acre and Damascus, have all treated me
as if I had been the Grand Vizier himself, which
makes all the common people imagine that I am a
queen. The Turks also estimate a person by their
riding well or ill ; and never having seen a woman
ride out of a foot's pace, or ride the scampering horse
of a great Pacha, they argue that I must be something
very extraordinary indeed. To confess the truth, I
like the Turks very much ; they are very polite and
well-mannered, and I have found them very hospitable.
So, indeed, have I even the Bedouin Arabs in the
desert. Most people are afraid of them, but I am not.
I have lived amongst them for a week together in the
desert, and was always treated with the greatest
respect and kindness. I have lodged fifteen of them in
my house at a time, and they have behaved quietly and
well, only eat most immensely to make up for eating
so little when at home. A little rice and camel's milk
is their chief food, and they have no water. I carried
what I wanted upon camels. I write and write to
Williams, but descriptions do not seem to amuse her,
and she never tells me any news, for she says she
knows none. What is she about ? I left her, hoping
she would marry well, like her sister, and do better
for herself than it would ever be in my power to do
for her. . . . All my English news is so old that I
shall not talk about it. People think of nothing here
but the French in Russia, and seem to expect they
will fly all over the world. Whenever you have time,
I shall be very happy to hear from you, and if any
friend of yours should happen to come into this
country, pray give me the opportunity of returning (by
my civility and attention to them) a little of that

1812-1816] DR. MERYON 147

hospitality I received from Mr. Fernandes and your-
self when at Malta. I am a queer animal, it is true,
but very popular with the Turks at least. What I am
with the Christians is of little consequence to me
here, as they have no weight whatever in this country;
if ever so rich, must not even ride a horse, or wear a
shawl upon their head, or yellow slippers ; yet are not
allowed to wear the dress of their country, or rather
a Frank dress. . . . Oh, I forgot to tell you that the
gentlemen have all long beards. And the Doctor is
such a quiz you can have no idea of ; his head shaved,
and a pigtail coming out of the crown a yard long, a
copper-coloured sheepskin, and a pipe, six feet long,
never out of his mouth. He never stands two minutes,
and squats about all over the house, sometimes upon the
roof, sometimes upon the stairs, the court, and all the
house ; when in the air, pulls a mat after him to sit
down upon ; washes his hands every five minutes, and
always eats with his fingers, without knife or fork,
like a Turk. As for our servants, you would die of
laughing to see them ! And they are so armed ; a
blunderbuss, a gun, a large knife, and a pair of pistols.
The cook cooks away with his pistols on. It is all
vastly amusing indeed. I shall hate to see quiet,
unarmed people for the rest of my life, I am sure. . . .
I like my wandering Arab life of all things, and, thank
God, my health is pretty good. I ride all my journeys,
and my horse is an everlasting one. He brought me
three days' journey out of the desert without drinking."

Lady Hester to Mr. Henry Williams Wynn

" HAMAR,

"January I5///, 1813.

11 1 cannot now go back to describe the Pacha of
here and the dear Jew, or the honours they bestowed

148 MOHANNA-EL-FADEL [CH. iv

upon me, or tell you how I was received by Monsieur
Taitbout, the French Consul at Sayde, the fetes which
were given me by the Emir and Sheick Beshyr, and of
my triumphal entry into Damascus, dressed as usual,
in spite of all the lectures I received from Mr. North
by letter, and the fright I put all the Christians into,
and most of all, my famous visit to the Pacha of
Damascus in the night during the Ramazan, midst
illuminations and thousands of people ; the conquests
I made of great Turks, Chiefs of Delebaches; and
lastly, that of the great Emir Mohanna-el-Fadel, Chief
of the Anazi Arabs, the tribes under his command
amount to forty thousand men, who are all ready to
draw their swords for me, and the Melliki is the
subject of conversation all over the desert. ... I have
orderly Arabs at my command, and receive despatches
every two or three days, giving me an account of what
is going forward in the desert, of what battles have
been fought, and with what tribes war has been
declared, &c., &c. . . . Twelve thousand troops having
marched out of Damascus in various directions, I began
to think it very dull, after all my most agreeable friends
had left it, and finding Mr. Barker a very troublesome
patient, with a fever that did not seem inclined to leave
him, or rather that he had fixed a certain term for its
duration, I took the determination to set off alone to
Horns or Hamar, and pay, at least, my promised
visit to Mohanna-el-Fadel, should he yet be near the
borders of the desert. I found he had waited for me
twenty-four days. I sent for him, and spent a week
with my people in their tents, and marched three days
with them. I had previously disarmed my servants,
saying, I put myself into the hands of God and the
great Emir, which succeeded admirably, for I did not
lose the value of a para, and was treated with the

1812-1816] HAMAR 149

greatest kindness and respect. I was dressed as a
Bedouin, and eat with my hands (not fingers), drank
camel's milk, and rode surrounded with one hundred
lances. What a sight it is at night to see horses,
men, and camels repair to the tents, no one can
have an idea of it but those who have seen it. One
morning twelve thousand camels belonging to one
tribe were carried to drink at once.

"After this experiment I think I can rely on
Mohanna's word, which has once more determined
B. and myself to go to Palmyra under his pro-
tection. . . . The Feadan, the powerful enemies, are
now driven to the neighbourhood of Bagdad ; but
parties still come this way, at least, about Palmyra.
This is the danger of going with Mohanna, yet, please
God, I must go. I have nine horses given me, three
bad and six good ones, but I would not take any from
the Arabs, though Mohanna offered me his own mare.

" I respect poverty and independence. I am an ex-
ample, at least, that it tells in some parts of the world,
for if your very self-important Uncle was to come
here and snort to the right and to the left, he would
do nothing either with Turks or Arabs.

" To command is to be really great, to have talents
is to talk sense without a book in one's hand, and
to have manners is to be able to accommodate oneself
to the customs and tastes of others, and still to make
them either fear or love you. Old G. has done neither
at home ; a pretty business he has made of his politics,
and a pretty scrape he has got you all into ! . . .

" I shall probably spend the summer at Antioch,
see the Kurds and Turkomans, and then I shall have
seen everything in Syria to perfection, and know
every leading character in it as well as I know the
present Prime Minister of England.

150 "FLUSTRATION OF MANNER" [CH. iv

" There are some men of great talents in this
country, but, generally speaking, the greatest rascals
upon the face of the earth. But you know I like
rascals better than fools, the latter do about the
same portion of mischief in the world, and bore
one to death besides.

" I hope that the fog of London has not occasioned
your health to relapse, 'and that you will take care
of yourself in the spring, and not divide your time
between hot rooms and the House of Commons.
Remember to endeavour to break yourself of the
family gabble. I believe I should have cured it,
together with the W. W. W. flustration of manner,
had I the pleasure of seeing more of you. The effect
it produced on Mahadini Efifendi, who met you near
Bosrah, is astonishing! I gave E." (Ebrington ?) " an
account of it from Damascus. Do tell me how you
find him, what is the matter with him, and why so
out of spirits ? Dear creature that he is, when every-
body loves him, how can he be unhappy? When you
write to me fill a whole page about him, for he writes
me little squeezy letters, and says very little always
about himself. ... I wish your uncle Tom, Lord G.,
and the dear General, could breathe the air of the
desert, they would then have no pains in their
stomachs ; even the horses sniff as if taking snuff,
it is so pure they quite live upon it, for they have
little else to nourish them.

" What is Taylor doing ? If my red shaloan at
Constantinople amused him so, what would my
present dress do ? It is that of the son of a chief,
or young chief, a Bedouin handkerchief bound on
with a sort of rope made of camel's hair, a curly
sheepskin pelisse to reach to the knees, a white
abba with a little gold on the right shoulder, crimson

1812-1816] HAMAR 151

loop and button, and two crimson strings or cords
to fasten it. This is the true thing, with a lance with
black feathers, mounted on a fine mare ; but I as yet
ride a horse. I ride now quite at my ease, and should
dislike a side saddle, I am sure. The Arabs are
enchanted with my horsemanship, which is lucky
for me ; they, as well as the Turks, think people
who cannot ride absolute fools. Nobody was ever so
popular with priests, Franks, Greeks, and Armenians
as old North ; but the Turks at Damascus considered
him quite contemptible because he could not ride at
all, and walked fast. . . . Adieu, dear Wynn, when-
ever you have time and inclination to write me a long
letter I shall be happy to receive it. Tell me how
dear old Sligo goes on. Where have I a relation who
has been as kind to me as he has been — the General
excepted? .... Sheick Ibrahim, the traveller, after
leaving me at Nazareth, went God knows where into
the desert, and has discovered a second Palmyra,
and at last arrived safe at Cairo, which he does not
like at all."

With the first breath of spring Lady Hester was
diligently at work negotiating and preparing for her
journey to Palmyra.

" We do not intend," writes Mr. Bruce, " as at first,
taking an escort to guard us against the Arabs, but
to put ourselves under their protection. . . . Lady
Hester has gained the friendship of Ishmael Aga,
a great Delebache chief, who has guaranteed our
safety. He is one of the most powerful men in Syria,
and the Arabs stand in great awe of him. I think,
therefore, that you need be under no apprehension
of our being detained prisoners in the desert.
Mohanna-el-Fadel, the chief of all the tribes known

152 ANOTHER ZENOBIA [CH. iv

by the name of Anizi, comes here to-morrow in order
to escort us. If Lady Hester succeeds in this under-
taking, she will at least have the merit of being the
first European female who has ever visited this once
celebrated city. Who knows but she may prove
another Zenobia, and be destined to restore it to its
ancient splendour? — perhaps she may form a matri-
monial alliance with Ebn Seaod, the great chief of the
Wahabees. He is not represented as a very lovable
object; but, making love subservient to ambition,
they may unite their arms together, bring about a
great revolution, both in religion and politics, and
shake the throne of the Sultan to its very centre.
I wish you would come and assist them with your
military counsel. How proud I should feel to learn
the art of war under so accomplished a General!
I only hope that Lady Hester's health will be able
to resist the fatigue which she will unavoidably be
exposed to."

She herself writes full of joyous anticipation :

" I have great confidence in the Arab chief; the
Pacha sent an express for him almost at the same
moment as mine arrived, and his answer was, 'The
Queen must be served first.'

" Mohanna waits my orders just as Lord Paget with
his cavalry would do your's were you to command
a great army. Upon receiving them he was to dispose
of the different tribes under his command in the way
he thought most advantageous in case of an enemy —
that is to say, not to leave a space, in a straight line,
of more than a few hours, without tents. This settled,
he was to set off and repair here with my second
messenger. . . ."

8 1 2-1 8 1 6] DEPARTURE FOR PALMYRA 153

Lady Hester to General Oakes

"March igth.

" To-morrow, my dear General, I mount my horse
with seventy Arabs, and am off to Palmyra at last.
I am so hurried, I cannot write all I wish, but the
Sir David Dundas of Syria I have made a conquest
of, and he insisted upon speaking to the Arab chiefs,
and said he would cut off all their heads if they did not
bring me back safe. I owe much to the kindness of
this old fellow, who, since I have resided here, has
thought of nothing but how he could serve me. He
tells me every day I must not leave off my Turkish
clothes.

" I have heard a few days ago from Captain Hope;
he expects to come out again to the Mediterranean,
and wishes to fetch me away from Syria if he can."

She had deposited 3,000 piastres (about £150) as
the price of her escort, one-third only to be paid
in advance, the rest on her safe return ; but mere
was much fear that the Arabs might be tempted to
plunder and detain her. Unfortunately, the most
absurd reports of her wealth had been current at
Damascus. She was said to ride a horse worth forty
purses, with housings and stirrups of pure gold; to
receive every morning one thousand sequins from the
English Sultan's treasurer ; to carry a book indicating
where hidden treasure was to be found (Wood and
Dawkin's views of Palmyra); and to possess a herb
that transmuted stones into gold. What might she
not be worth as a prisoner? What fabulous sum
might not be asked for her ransom ? "I cannot,"
she writes to Lord Sligo, "enter into the detail of
the dreadful stories that were told us of the danger
we were running into, but all that did not deter me
from my purpose."

Her departure, on March 2oth, excited universal
interest. For more than half a league out of the
town eager crowds lined the way, and janissaries
had to be employed to keep them off. All the party —

154 PALMYRA AT LAST [CH. iv

even the much-tried Mrs. Fry — were dressed as
Bedouins.

" We set off with the two sons of the King of the
Desert, forty camels loaded with provisions and water
and presents, twenty horsemen, the Doctor, Mr. Bruce,
myself, and an Arab dragoman, a second dragoman,
and a Mameluke, too cooks, a Caffagi, four Cairo
sayses, the Emir El-Akoar, a stud-groom, Mr. B.'s
valet, and Madame Fry, two sakas or water-carriers,
my slave, two ferrases or tent-pitchers, with an escort
of Arabs. On the second day we arrived at the tents
of the King of the Arabs, who had advanced to the
borders on purpose to meet us. We remained there
a day, and were very much entertained with Arab
stories and civility. I then requested the Emir to
move his camp to the northward. We proceeded,
and passed through some other tribes, and encamped
at night among the Beni Hez. The next day we
passed through the Beni Kaleds, and encamped in a
very desolate place, but sent for a guard from the
tribe of the Sebah, who were not very far off.

" Having visited the tribes of the Melhem, the Beni
Hez, the Beni something else, and the Sebahs, we
arrived on the eighth day at Palmyra. We met two
thousand of the Sebahs upon their march, descending
into the plain where we were reposing, from the Belaz,
a mountain pass, with all their fine mares, little colts,
little camels, little children, and hideous women, with
the most extraordinary head-dresses and extraordinary
rings at their noses, and preposterously tatooed in
flowers and frightful figures.

" You must not understand Palmyra to be a desolate
place, but one in which there are fifteen hundred
inhabitants. The chief and about three hundred

1812-1816] PALMYRA 155

people came out about two hours' distance to meet
us. He and a few of the grandees were upon Arab
mares, and dressed rather more to imitate Turks than
Arabs, with silk shawls and large silk turbans. The
men, at least many of them, had their whole bodies
naked, except a pestimal, or petticoat, studded or
ornamented with leather, blackamoors' teeth, beads,
and strange sorts of things that you see on the stage.
They were armed with matchlocks and guns, all
surrounding me and firing in my face, with most
dreadful shouts and savage music and dancing. They
played all sorts of antics till we arrived at the
triumphal arch at Palmyra. The inhabitants were
arranged in the most picturesque manner on the
different columns leading to the Temple of the Sun.
The space before the arch was occupied with dancing
girls, most fancifully and elegantly dressed, and
beautiful children placed upon the projecting parts
of the pillars with garlands of flowers. One, sus-
pended over the arch, held a wreath over my head.
After having stopped a few minutes, the procession
continued. The dancing-girls immediately surrounded
me. The lancemen took the lead, followed by the poets
from the banks of the Euphrates, singing compli-
mentary odes and playing upon various Arabian
instruments. A tribe of hale Palmyrenes brought
up the rear, when we took up our habitation in the
Temple of the Sun, and remained there a week.

" I must tell you that the difficulty of this enterprise
was that the King of the Desert was at war with some
very powerful Arabs, and it was from them we were
in dread of being surprised, particularly as it was
known that they had said that they could sell me
for 25,000 piastres, or three hundred purses, and
which they certainly thought they could get for my

156 RETURN TO HAMAR [CH. w

ransom at home. This was the most alarming part
of the business. Our people, nevertheless, went out
robbing every day, and came home with a fine khanjar,
and some visible spoil. We heard of nothing but the
advance of the enemy to the east of Palmyra, and we
believed it, as we had taken five of their scouts
prisoners, which we thought well secured at Palmyra ;
but unfortunately one night one got out, and fearing
that he would give the intelligence of what day we
were to begin our journey back again, we set off
before our intended time. We were, nevertheless,
pursued by three hundred horses a few hours off,
which fell upon the tribe of the Sebahs, and killed
a chief and took some tents ; and the Sebahs, on their
side, carried off twenty-two mares. We returned a
different way, having made acquaintance with the
tribe of the Amoors, the Hadideens, the Wahabees,
and another battalion of Sebahs, including Wahabees,
and a party of hunting Arabs that are dressed in the
skins of wild beasts. We arrived in safety at the
tents of the Grand Emir, Mohanna El-Fadel, who
gave us a fine Arab feast and killed a camel, of which
we partook. At two hours from Hamar, we were met
by a corps of Delebaches, who were sent as a com-
plimentary escort by Moli Ismail, a man of great note
in Syria, who conducted us to his house, where dinner
was prepared for three hundred people, and corn
provided for all the Arab mares. Within a mile of
Hamar, full ten thousand people were assembled out
of curiosity, half of which were women, and many
women of distinction, with Nasif Pacha's children,
carried by slaves. Mashallah echoed from every
mouth. Seldmet, ya meleky ; seldme, ya syt (welcome,
Queen; welcome, Madam). El hamd Sillah (thank
God). Allah kerym (the Lord is gracious). And this

i8 1 2-1 8 1 6] HAMAR 157

very interesting scene proved my Ladyship's popularity
in Hamar.

" Nothing in the world could have been so well
managed, which proves me an eleve of Colonel Gordon's,
for I was at once quartermaster, adjutant, and commis-
sary-general. We were as comfortable upon our road
as we were at home, and the Duke of Kent could not
have given out more minute orders, or have been more
particular in their being executed, which, in fact, is the
only way of performing a thing of that sort with any
degree of comfort.

" We were excessively entertained with the different
conversations of these people, and the extravagant
though elegant compliments they paid me. They
have got it into their heads that the only power
which can affect them is Russia. They were always
thanking God I was not Empress of Russia, other-
wise their freedom would be lost. I am now getting
translated into Arabic all the real achievements of
the Emperor Alexander, on purpose to send to my
friends in the Desert. They are the most singular
and wonderfully clever people I ever saw, but require
a great deal of management, for they are more
desperate and more deep than you can possibly
have an idea of. It would have very much amused
you to see me riding like a Bedouin woman in a
bird's nest made of carpeting upon a camel, and upon
one of the fleet dromedaries like a Wahabee. I am
enrolled as an Anisy Arab in the tribe of the Melhem,
and have now the rights of the Desert, particularly
that of recommending my friends who may wish to
visit them.

" After my return to Hamar, the immense number
of Arabs that waited on me from all quarters was
quite surprising. You think we have wasted our

158 SYRIAN CHARM [CH. iv

time in Syria, but certainly we have seen in great
perfection what nobody else has, not even your friend
Shaykh Ibrahim" (Burckhardt), "who, going under
consular protection, was stripped stark naked in
coming from Palmyra, and after having marched
some days in this happy state, got a pair of shalwars
(trousers) at a village, and in this figure entered
Damascus. ... I only saw one mare, a Wahabee,
that I thought perfection. The owner said he would
not part with her for less than one hundred purses.
The generality of their horses and mares is by no
means so beautiful as you would imagine, but beyond
anything excellent for swiftness and fatigue. I could
write volumes upon different circumstances that took
place on this interesting journey, which I certainly
recommend to no traveller to undertake without being
well aware of the carte du pays, and having consider-
able abilities to plan and great energy to go through
with it. When you are once in the scrape nobody
can get you out of it, for no Pacha has sufficient
authority over them to be the least depended upon.
They no sooner heard of our intention of going with
the Pacha's people than they said they should cut off all
their beards and send them naked about their business.
For my part I believe they would have been as good
as their word. The idea of telling them cock-and-bull
stories, and treating them like fools, is perfectly incor-
rect; they are much more difficult to manage than
any Europeans I have ever seen. . . . There was a
chief that Lord Petersham would die of envy before,
as he was as eveille as a Frenchman, and presented
himself with the air of Lord Rivers or the Duke of
Grafton. Respecting etiquette and politeness, these
people certainly far exceed even the Turks; but for
eloquence and beauty of ideas (though one can hardly

1812-1816] QUEEN OF THE DESERT 159

be a judge of it) they undoubtedly are beyond any
other people in the world.

" To expect a frigate upon this coast till the plague
is quite gone is out of the question, and to pop into
a nasty infected ship would be folly."

Lady Hester to Mr. PL W. Wynn

" LATAKIA,

"June 30/7*, 1813.

" DEAR WYNN, — Without joking, I have been
crowned Queen of the Desert under the triumphal
arch at Palmyra ! Nothing ever succeeded better than
this journey, dangerous as it was, for upon our return
we were pursued by two hundred of the enemy's horse,
but escaped from them. They were determined to
have the head of the chief who accompanied us, yet
sent me an ambassador in secret to say that I need fear
nothing, that everything belonging to me should be
respected; such were the orders given out to this
powerful tribe by five of their chiefs assembled in the
neighbourhood of Bagdad. The Slepts (the Arabs
who live by hunting and are dressed in the skins of
beasts), the bands from the banks of the Euphrates,
story-tellers, and Wahabees, all paid me homage. If
I please I can now go to Mecca alone', I have nothing
to fear. I shall soon have as many names as Apollo.
I am the sun, the star, the pearl, the lion, the light
from Heaven, and the Queen, which all sounds well
in its way ; for example, ' Salutation from the Warrior
Hedgerez, son of Shallun, to our great Mistress,
Pearl of Friends and Standard of High Honour.'
I have five hundred letters from these people, one
more amusing than the other. Old ' G.' would be six
months squeezing out as many beautiful ideas as they
produce in ten minutes, both in conversation and
upon paper. I am quite wild about these people ; and

160 ARAB FRIENDSHIP [CH. iv

all Syria is in astonishment at my courage and my
success. To have spent a month with some thousand
of Bedouin Arabs is no common thing. For three
days they plagued me sadly, and all the party but B.
almost insisted on returning. The servants, frightened
out of their senses, always had their eyes fixed upon
their arms or upon me. The dragoman could not
speak, he had quite lost his head. All the people
about me were chosen rascals, and having primed a
fellow who was once with the French army in Egypt,
I rode dash into the middle of them and made my
speech ; that is to say, I acted and the men spoke.
It so surprised them and charmed them that they all
became as humble as possible ; and here ended any
unpleasant scenes with them. I really believe that
some of them now have a sincere affection for me, as
their conduct proved on several occasions. One in
particular: a chief not resenting, or allowing his people
to resent, a blow that had been given him by an Arab
of another tribe, an outrage to be punished with death.
He said : ' Were we to fight, you might lose your life
in the confusion, and inevitably be robbed ; therefore
we shall put it off and have the man's blood another
time.' This was neither cowardice nor indolence, but
an act of real friendship, which any one who saw the
effect the blow had produced could not have doubted.
I had been riding upon a camel like a Bedouin woman
for my amusement, and was just going to mount a
dromedary to ride like a Wahabee, all those about me
ran away in an instant and left me with a troublesome
beast who would not keep on his knees long enough
for me to get up. Had you witnessed the fury of
these people when they saw their chief struck ! To
me it was quite delightful ; they were all ready to die
in a moment ; yet were quiet, however, as soon as the

i8 1 2-i 8 1 6] LATAKIA 161

chief spoke. But revenge was painted in the counten-
ances of all his people. When the world becomes
still more corrupt, when people— civilized people —
become still more brutal and still more incisive, it is a
pleasure to reflect that there is a spot of earth inhabited
by what we call barbarians, who have at least some
sense of honour and feeling, and where one is sure
never to be bored with stupidity or gabble, for they
are the most brilliant and eloquent people I ever
knew. Nobody must ever give an opinion about the
charms of the desert who has not seen above fifteen
hundred camels descend the Belap mountains into the
enchanting vale of Mangoura, and a tribe of Arabs
pitch their tents upon beds of flowers of ten thousand
hues, bringing with them hundreds of living creatures
only a few days old, children, lambs, kids, young
camels, or puppies. But it would be quite in vain for
me to attempt to give a G." (Grenville) " an account of
my empire, they who can enjoy nothing but grand
walks and trim shrubs ; if I could inspire any one of
them with a different taste, I should be blamed, and
be unhappy when obliged to admire the dulness and
grandeur of S." (Stowe) " and the confined missified
beauties of D." (Dropmore) ; " as for B." (Boconnoc),
" it was made for its late owner, and for a great mind.
" I should think Lord G." (Grenville) " was not in
the best humour just now at C.'s" (Canning) "rising
popularity. I am indignant that a man who positively
refused a few years ago to follow Mr. P." (Pitt)
" should now, from interested motives only, stick him-
self up as the representative of his principles. ... If it
should plague Lord G., I must say he deserves it, for
his want of feeling and liberality. Had he, upon
Mr. P.'s death, sent for my brothers (whom he might
freely have considered as his children), offered them

12

162 THE PLAGUE [CH. iv

a seat in Parliament without any restrictions, and have
added he had done this out of respect to the memory
of his friend, as he knew it was his intention that one,
if not both, should be brought forward in public life,
Mr. P. might then have had a representative, and Lord
G. at least a generous political enemy, or had they
either then or hereafter attached themselves to his
party, he would have secured (for their age) the most
sincere and able friends he ever yet had. . . . What
apolitical pearl dear E." (Ebrington?) "would have
been, so pure, so moderate, yet so firm, and you might
have been made to work and speak plain.

" Here I am in the midst of the plague ; it is all over
Syria, Aleppo only is free from it as yet. This is
a great bore, for, though we ride out every day, still
it would not be prudent to travel. . . . Above seven
thousand people (above half the population of Tripoli)
have died of the plague. Here it is only slight, but
the French Consul has left the place for a village, and
not a Frank hardly will put their head out of window.
We are very well off in a house, to make up for what
we suffered last winter. You will hardly believe me
when I tell you that the cold made me so ill that for
more than two months I never walked upstairs, and
I mounted my horse to go into the desert in this state.
I would go — I would keep my word with the Arabs.
I improved daily, and in a fortnight generally travelled
from seven, eight, nine or ten hours per day. I came
back vastly improved, both in health and spirits ; but
although I am not myself afraid of the plague, yet I think
it right to take proper precautions; and the servants are
such bores, frightened out of their senses, fancying if
they have got a little dust in their eyes, or have eaten
too much, it is the plague, and yet so careless, it is all
I can do to prevent them from buying things out of

1812-1816] LATAKIA 163

Egyptian shops to get the plague and getting out
upon all occasions. You must not consider this scrawl
as the picture of my mind, which is tolerably com-
posed in all its troubles, and much more anxious
about others than myself, and not a little for
absent friends. . . . E." (Ebrington ?) "came into my
head every quarter of an hour while passing through
some beautiful valleys inhabited by the Kurds, and
filled with myrtles fourteen or twenty feet high ; the
shepherds all play upon reeds, and vastly well too.
This place is very beautiful ; trees down to the edge
of the sea, olives covered with grape vines, fig-trees
of an immense size, and every other luxuriant plant
which the country abounds with. And I feel myself
in the dominions of Soliman Pacha, every thing bows
before me at his command and that of my dear friend
the Jew. There is talent ! He would turn old G. round
his finger. . . . The Captain Pacha it is said is coming
up this way, but I think he is in all probability only
gone to seize the treasure of a Pacha who died lately
in Caresmania. I have heard that the plague is at
Malta, and am in great tribulation about General
Oakes, Colonel Anderson, and poor Williams and her
sister. To be isolated in this manner is not pleasant ;
but, however, I ought to thank God the plague here is
slight. It is said here to have got to Russia, how
there I know not, but heaven avert its reaching
England, the fleet, and Spain. . . . Too much care
cannot be taken at the different ports."

In neither of these letters does Lady Hester make
any allusion to a very disagreeable incident in her
journey to Palmyra, of which Mr. Bruce gives the
following account. It was her habit every evening,
when the business of encamping was over, to go to the
tent where they assembled for meals, and summon the
Arab chiefs to come and talk with her. The Emir

164 LADY HESTER'S NERVE [CH. iv

Nasar (Mohanna's son, and the leader of the expedi-
tion) had till then responded to her call with great
alacrity ; but on the fifth day after their departure
from Hamar, he refused to come, sending back word
that " Lady Hester might be the daughter of a vizir,
but he, too, was the son of a prince, and was not
disposed at that moment to leave his tent. If she
wanted him, she, or her interpreter, might come to
him." It was whispered about that he was very
moody, and meant mischief, and there was much
perturbation and anxiety in the camp. Lady Hester
alone was perfectly unmoved and unconcerned.

The next evening brought graver cause for alarm.
After dinner, as they sat discussing what they should
do if Nasar proved treacherous, they heard a great
noise and confusion outside, and Lady Hester's
servant rushed in to tell them that some of the mares
were missing, a party of Faydan Arabs reported to
be prowling round the camp, and all the Bedouins
arming and mounting in pursuit. Nasar himself rode
away with the rest, and they suddenly found the
whole of their escort gone. They were left in the
heart of the desert, without guide or bearings, knowing
neither where they were, nor how to find the wells
on which their existence depended, encumbered with
a great pile of luggage, most tempting as booty, and
so few in number as to be at the mercy of any strong
band of marauders. The situation was extremely
critical ; but Lady Hester, undismayed, appeared " as
cool as if in a ball-room." She gave orders that every
man should take his gun and pistol, and stationed her
little garrison at different points round the camp.
After a time, however, Nasar and his Bedouins re-
appeared, and it was shrewdly suspected he had been
no farther off than some neighbouring sandhills,
behind which he had watched the effect of his pro-
ceedings. The whole scare was, in fact, a feint to
test Lady Hester's nerve, and see whether she could
not be frightened into paying a larger subsidy.

She refers to her desert experiences in a subsequent
letter.

Lady Hester to Mr. H. W. Wynn

" Bruce ridiculed my mode of going to Palmyra ;
I had my object for what I did. I had first been

1812-1816] LATAKIA 165

alone into the desert to try the good faith of these
people, and made myself a regular Bedaween, and
was admitted with the rights of one into the king's
tribe. I travelled with them for three days. When
I left them, I was attended by two of the Emir's sons,
my new brothers. Forty-thousand Arabs were then
at war (not half-a-dozen tents, as when Mr. B. was
there) ; we were waylaid by a party of the enemy ;
but, getting information of this, and taking another
direction, and having good horses, we escaped. I
was twelve hours on horseback, and when I got off,
I stretched myself out upon the ground as if I had
been dead, not from fright, but fatigue and want of
water, and when I drank, I was well and as cheerful
as ever in a quarter of an hour. But it was not quite
satisfactory. Had they robbed me, they would not
have got much, but the thing was to go in the
character of a person who had something to lose.
The next time I set off with forty camels and twenty
horses, eighteen of which had been given to Bruce
and me in this country. We remained thirty days
with these people, whose character I had an oppor-
tunity of investigating pretty thoroughly. His object
was to see Palmyra ; mine to see the Bedaweens to
perfection. I like the fine arts, yet, to say the truth,
I am much more interested in the works of God than
those of man. These savages, guided by their own
wonderful abilities, and who have reduced the wants
of human nature to a mere nothing, gave a most
wonderful example of mental and bodily strength.
Besides, the beauty of parts of the desert in early
spring are not to be described. Almost all the
bulbous plants we rear with so much care spring
up in a fortnight as if by magic, bloom amongst
innumerable, unknown, odoriferous herbs, and fade,

166 RAVAGES OF THE PLAGUE [CH. iv

nearly as quickly, by the great heat and drying
winds."

Having accomplished Palmyra, Lady Hester next
turned her steps to Latakia, on the sea-coast, where
she took a house for the summer, while awaiting an
opportunity of leaving the country. The plague was
then depopulating Syria ; at Damascus alone it was
believed to have carried off 100,000 souls, and it is
clear that at that time she had fully made up her mind
to go.

Lady Hester to General Oakes

"LATAKIA,

"July 15, 1813.

"The plague is all over Syria (Aleppo excepted).
Here, thank God, it has been slight, and is upon the
wane, as is the case everywhere where it has been
for some time ; besides, they pretend the heat destroys
it, which I do not believe, for it raged with great
violence last year at Constantinople in very hot
weather. I only heard about a fortnight ago that it
had broken out at Malta ; what I have felt for your
health from that moment I cannot express, as I fear
it is not in a state to bear increased fatigue and mental
anxiety.

"You must have too much to think of just now,
for me to trouble you with an account of our journey
into the desert, which is considered as the most
extraordinary ever made in this country. All those
who know the Arabs only wonder we ever returned
alive. Bruce wrote you one line from Hamar, ' the
very day, I think, of our arrival there, for a report
had been spread at Aleppo and Damascus that we
had been cut to pieces. . . . Any letters you may
receive from this time, send, if you please, to Smyrna,
for we shall get away from here as soon as we can
get a good passage, either in a ship of war, or a ship

1 8 1 2-1 8 1 6] LATAKIA 167

of this country, when no longer infected by the plague ;
but they are not safe just now ; nor is this good
weather up here, the heat is so great at sea, and there
are frequent calms. Hope suffered much last year at
this season. October is the best month to leave the
coast, after the equinoctial gales are over. . . . As far
as country and a good house goes, we are very com-
fortable ; as well off as ill off last winter."

But when October came, her mood had changed,
and it was Mr. Bruce, not she, who left Syria. He
was summoned home by his father, who had no doubt
long been pressing him to return to England, and
the danger from the plague made it doubly desirable.
He himself had probably had enough of the East, and
felt he could not remain much longer away without
expatriating himself altogether. But he and Lady
Hester parted with mutual regret. She, too, dreaded
the plague, and had, as we have seen, made plans of
escape ; at one moment she announced that she was
going back to Europe ; then she thought of Russia,
and even of making her way to Bussora, and there
embarking for India. But to England she would not
go, it was the one impossible place ; and in the end
she decided to remain where she was.

She had been for some time enthusiastically em-
ployed in trying to help the escaped Mameluke she
had met at Jerusalem (see p. 123), and Mr. Canning, to
whom she applied, had endeavoured to interest his
friends in the cause. This is in answer to one of his
letters on the subject :

" LATAKIA,

" October 22nd, 1813.

" You must not be alarmed and think that I am
going to keep up a correspondence with you, but I
cannot avoid thanking you for your letter, and also
for the trouble you have taken about the poor victim.
All you say is very just ; but to say the truth it does
not quite please me to hear rich men complain of

168 PRINCE OF THE DRUSES [CH. iv

poverty ; however, God will take care of His creatures
in this and every other country. The English world
are about as good-natured as I believed them to be.
To ridicule a person said to be starving in a burning
desert is very charitable ; but, poor souls ! their
imagination is as miserable as their humanity is
bounded, for it never, I suppose, entered their heads
that I carried everything before me, and was crowned
under the triumphal arch at Palmyra, pitched my tent
amidst thousands of Arabs, and spent a month with
these very interesting people. Let the great learn
from them hospitality and liberality. I have seen an
Arab strip himself to his shirt to give clothes to those
he thought needed them more than himself. I have
suffered great fatigue, it is very true, because all my
people were such cowards, and they gave me a great
deal of trouble; but yet I cannot regret past hard-
ships, as it has given me the opportunity of seeing
what is so curious and interesting, the manners and
customs of the most free and independent people in
the world.

" In about a week I repair to a pretty convent at
the foot of Lebanon for the winter. The Pacha of
Acre is come into that neighbourhood to repair a
castle, and the Prince of the Druses hunts within an
hour of my habitation, so I shall often see him. We
are very good friends, he is a very agreeable man,
and very popular in the Mountain. I am quite at
home all over the country; the common people pay
me the same sort of respect as they do a great Turk,
and the great men treat me as if I was one of them.
In short, I am very happy in my own odd way ; part
of this country is divine, and I always find something
to amuse and occupy my mind. Now the good people
of England may imagine me forlorn and miserable,

i8i2-i8i6] MAR ELIAS, LEBANON 169

they are very welcome. I would not change my
philosophical life for their empty follies.

" Mohammed Ali admitted me to the Divan ; and
when at Acre I rode Soliman Pacha's parade horse,
having the use of his own sword and khangar, all over
jewels. My visit to the Pacha of Damascus in the
night during the Ramadan was the finest thing
possible. I was mounted on an Arab horse he had
given me, my people on foot, and he surrounded with
two thousand servants and picked guards, Albanians,
Delibashis, and Mograbines. You see the Turks are
not quite such brutes as you once thought them, or
they could never have treated me with the degree of
friendship and hospitality they have done."

Mar Elias, the "pretty convent" here mentioned,
was the occasional residence of the Patriarch of the
Greek Catholics, who had civilly placed it at Lady
Hester's disposal, at a rent of £30 a year. She
had seen it during her rides in the Lebanon, and taken
a fancy to the place. But it by no means commended
itself to the doctor, when he was sent there to make
arrangements for her reception, as, at the sight of his
future residence, his " thoughts involuntarily turned
towards England." He found, about two miles from
Saida, a low square building, high up on the mountain-
side, in a barren and lonely, though picturesque
situation, commanding a wide view of the sea. There
was no garden, only a few flowers and two small
orange-trees in the square walled court. The roof of
the house leaked, and a discoloration of the wall of
the staircase was explained by the unpleasant fact that
only a week or two before, a former Patriarch had
been buried there, seated in his armchair.

It was not till the following year that poor Lady
Hester could take possession of her new home. On
November 15th, when she was on the point of setting
out, she was seized with the plague ; and the doctor
took to his bed with low fever. For twelve days he
was unable to attend her, and she was left to the care

i;o ATTACK OF PLAGUE [CH. iv

of a French doctor and an Italian surgeon. When, at
last, urged by Mr. Barker, he took his place by her
bedside, he found her so terribly ill that for twelve
hours he despaired of her life, and Mr. B. (I presume
in his official capacity) announced to her that she was
going to die. When this crisis was past, it was still
some time before she could be pronounced out of
danger ; and then poor Mrs. Fry, worn out with
nursing and anxiety, was laid up with a nervous fever.
Two native women who took her place proved, how-
ever, tolerably efficient, and Lady Hester was slowly
recovering when she was attacked with ague. The
winter rains had set in, and her sick-room was often
inundated, for the house that had been so pleasant in
summer time proved to be very far from weather-
proof, and a cope of felt had to be stretched over her
bed to keep off the water. No comforts of any kind
were procurable, nor, except on rare occasions, any
food but goat's flesh ; and her one anxiety was to get
away from the place. But it was only on January ist
that she was able to stand on her feet ; and on the 6th,
when, after a detention of forty-eight days, she was at
last allowed to leave the house, she at once rode down
to the shore and embarked. She was so weak that it
was with difficulty she was lifted upon her ass, and
supported in the saddle. The six days' voyage to
Saida was prosperous; but here she was detained
some weeks, while the necessary repairs were carried
out at Mar Elias, and had a return of her ague. At
last, in the middle of February, she was installed in
her new habitation, and the doctor in a cottage near at
hand.

Lady Hester rose from her sick-bed greatly sobered
and subdued ; even her wonderful nerve deserted her,
and many months were to elapse before her vigorous
constitution reasserted itself. For the time, she ap-
peared to be a changed woman. She shut herself up,
and lived in total seclusion, avoiding as far as possible
all contact with the outer world, for the plague had
reappeared with great virulence, both at Saida and in
the Lebanon. The only person she received was
Captain Forster, of H.M.'s sloop Kite, who had been
sent to Saida by Sir Robert Listen at her own request.
She had asked for the aid of a ship of war to examine
the ruins of Ascalon where she proposed, with the

1812-1816] BAALBEC 171

authority of the Sultan, to search for hidden treasure.
Some time before, a MS. had been placed in her hands
that was said to have been surreptitiously copied by a
monk from the records of a Frank convent in Syria,
and found among his papers at his death. It was
written in Italian, and disclosed the repositories of
immense hoards of coin, buried in the cities of
Ascalon, Awgy, and Sidon, at certain spots therein
specified. Such modes of disposing of treasure were,
owing to the general insecurity of property, not un-
common in the East, where a man had to keep most of
his valuables in his own possession, and could hardly
carry them away with him in the event of a sudden
flight. Lady Hester's belief in the story was therefore
by no means so extravagant as it might have been
thought in England. But Captain Forster, on recon-
noitring the coast, found it impracticable to land at
Ascalon, and so the matter dropped — but only for a
time.

In July, Lady Hester was so prostrated with the
heat that the doctor removed her to Mishmushy, a
Druse village situated on a mountain top, where the
Emir Beshyr, though somewhat grudgingly, had given
her the use of a house. She remained for ten weeks
in this lofty eyry, declaring she had never been more
comfortable anywhere since she left Malta ; and on
October i8th, revived and restored to her old buoyant
self, she started on a long projected expedition to
Baalbec. She dispensed with an escort, taking with
her, besides the doctor, a dragoman and thirteen
servants, of whom five were women. They travelled
on asses, and reached Baalbec on the sixth day. Here
the doctor, carried away by his enthusiasm, launched
forth into poetry, and inscribed a Latin quatrain in
Lady Hester's honour on the walls of the Temple of
the Sun. But when it was translated to her, she
promptly ordered it to be effaced. " While I was
living with my uncle," she declared, " I never allowed
any one either to sing my praises or paint my
portrait." They only remained a fortnight, being
advised that the passes of the Lebanon would shortly
be blocked with snow ; and even as it was, they had a
cold and stormy journey to Tripoli. At one of their
halting-places, the Maronite convent of Mar Antonius
(St. Anthony), the men only could be received, as the

172 CONVENT OF ST. ANTHONY [CH. iv

Saint's wrath was believed to wreak terrible vengeance
on anything of the female sex bold enough to cross the
threshold. Even the villagers' hens were kept cooped
up lest they should stray into the sacred precincts.
Lady Hester and her women were therefore lodged in
a house hard by. No sooner had she arrived than she
sent word to the Superior that she was about to test the
Saint's gallantry, and proposed giving a dinner to him
and some Shaykhs that were escorting her in one of
the rooms of his monastery on the following day,
hinting at the same time that the Sultan's firman
empowered her to visit any place she chose, and that
opposition to her meant opposition to him. The
horror and indignation of the unhappy monks at such
sacrilegious impiety may be conceived ; but they did
not venture to offer open resistance, and when the
dinner hour arrived, Lady Hester, mounted on her ass
(a she-ass, be it observed), rode ostentatiously into
the very hall of the monastery, visited every hole and
corner of the building, sat down to dinner with the
trembling Superior, and remained four hours within
the jealously-guarded precincts. Many of the by-
standers every moment expected the earth to open
and swallow her up ; and the fame of her exploit was
bruited far and wide. When she arrived at Tripoli,
the whole population turned out in a pelting rain-
storm to see her; and there, as elsewhere, she
won the heart of the Pacha — by all accounts a grim
and formidable Pacha, who paid her every sort of
honour during her stay.

On January 28th, 1815, she returned to Mar Elias,
and found the neighbourhood in great trepidation at
the arrival of a Capugi Bashi, or Zaym, from Constan-
tinople, whose presence was invariably of ill-omen.
These emissaries of the Porte — always persons of the
highest rank — were employed on missions connected
with executions, confiscations, and imprisonment ; and
it had been reported from Beyrout that the Zaym was
instructed to carry Lady Hester to Constantinople as
his prisoner. Wnen a messenger arrived requiring
her presence at the Governor's house at Saida, both
the doctor and the dragoman were aghast ; they
already saw the bowstring dangling before their eyes,
and hid their pistols in their girdle. Lady Hester was
better informed, for she expected the Zaym, knowing

1812-1816] MAR ELIAS 173

the cause of his coming, and her answer to his
peremptory message put matters on a very different
looting. No Zaym had ever yet condescended to visit
a Christian, yet the great man at once mounted his
horse and came to Mar Elias, where he took up his
abode as her guest. It seemed that, through Sir
Robert Listen, she had communicated with the Sultan
concerning the clue she possessed to hidden treasures
in the Levant, offering to make over the whole of them
to him, only reserving to herself the honour of the
discovery, " since I never seek to appropriate the
property of others." This offer was very favourably
received, and the Zaym was entrusted with three
firmans, one to the Pacha of Acre, another to the
Pacha of Damascus, and another to all Governors of
Syria, which were to be delivered to Lady Hester, and
invest her with greater powers than perhaps any
Ambassador, but certainly no unofficial Christian, ever
before possessed. The redoubtable Zaym himself was
placed under her direction.

But how about the expenses, which must necessarily
be great ? Her income was barely sufficient for her
ordinary expenditure, and had been considerably
exceeded by her journey to Baalbec, even though,
from economy, it had been performed on asses instead
of horses. She made up her mind to send in the bill
to the English Government through Sir Robert Listen,
averring that its payment was no more than her due
for having gained such reputation for the English
name. " If they refuse to pay me I shall put it in the
newspapers, and expose them. And this I shall let
them know very plainly, as I consider it my right and
not a favour ; for, if Sir A. Paget put down the cost of
his servants' liveries after his Embassy to Vienna and
made Mr. Pitt pay him, I cannot see why I should not
do the same." She had unhesitatingly constituted
herself an Ambassadress, and desired the doctor to
keep a strict account of all her payments.

The excavations were to commence at Ascalon
without loss of time. She wished, however, for
another helper besides the Zaym, and sent off an
express to one Malem Musa, at Hamar, of whom she
had conceived a high opinion, desiring him to meet
her at Acre. "You know," she writes, "that I am a
straightforward person. An affair has happened that

174 EXCAVATIONS AT ACRE [CH. iv

demands your presence at Acre. Be not alarmed,
there is nothing serious in it, but let nothing prevent
your coming, short of illness."

She left Mar Elias in the middle of February, and
was received at Acre with the honours of a princess.
The tent afterwards used by the Princess of Wales,
splendidly lined with bands of coloured satins, was
assigned to her, with nineteen others in addition to the
six she had brought with her ; she travelled in a
gorgeous tartaravan (the despised palanquin of three
years before) borne by two mules, which were
changed every two hours, and her horse and favourite
ass were led in front of it in case she preferred to ride.

The work of exploration was begun with much
enthusiasm, for it was generally believed that Lady
Hester possessed a magic spell that revealed hidden
treasure, and had come to the East for no other
purpose than to use it. But it had to be abandoned as
hopeless in ten days. Here is the account sent by
Lady Hester to Lord Bathurst, then Secretary of
State :

" The mosque in which the treasure was said to be
hidden was no longer standing. One wall only re-
mained of a magnificent structure, which had been
mosque, temple, church at different periods. After
having traced out the S.W. and N. foundation walls,
and after digging for several days within them,
we came to the underground fabric we were
looking for, but, alas ! it had been rifled. It was,
as nearly as one could calculate, capable of containing
three million of pieces of gold — the sum mentioned in
the document. Whilst excavating this once mag-
nificent building — for such it must have been by the
number of fine columns and fine pavements we dis-
covered underground — we discovered a superb colossal
statue without a head, which belonged to the heathens.
It was eighteen feet below the surface. Knowing how
much it would be prized by English travellers, I
ordered it to be broken into a thousand pieces, that

1812-1816] ACRE— JAFFA 175

malicious persons might not say I came to look for
statues for my countrymen, and not for treasures for
the Porte."

This was dealing hard measure with a vengeance-
all the harder because, as we have seen, she fully
intended her countrymen to pay the bill. But she felt
herself in a difficult position. She had failed in her
quest, ulterior motives might be laid to her charge,
and she knew that she was watched by jealous and
suspicious eyes.

On her way back she stopped for a time at Jaffa, for
near there, at Awgy, another site for discoveries had
been indicated, and she could still write in good faith,
" The authenticity of the paper I do not doubt." But
it was found impossible to identify the place described,
and no exploration could be attempted.

There is a certain tone of discouragement in her
next letter.

Lady Hester to General Oakes

"JAFFA,

u April 2$tk> 1815.

"You must not think that I am ungrateful, or that
the interest I felt in your concerns is in the least
diminished, although I am less anxious about you,
knowing you to be in the midst of friends who love
you. I received your kind letter, written at different
periods and partly upon your voyage to England last
October, just as I was about to leave Mount Lebanon
for Balbeck. I returned to my convent the end of
January, having made a long tour. Upon the very
night of my arrival there the great person (mentioned
in the enclosed paper) paid me a visit, indeed, took up
his abode in my comfortable mansion for some time.
Then I proceeded to Acre to pay my respects to the
Pacha, and my guest from the Porte accompanied me.
Therefore you see that from October I have never had
a quiet moment I could call my own, and besides,
occasions, either by sea or land, are scarce and unsafe

176 MR. BRUCE [CH. iv

in the winter season, and intending to send a person
to England when all my business was over, I have
deferred answering most of my letters to send them
by this conveyance.

" I have at last decided upon sending for James to
take me away from this country, for I know so little of
the state of the Continent, and feel in my own mind so
doubtful of its remaining quiet, or, if it does, that I
shall like it as formerly, that before I break up a
comfortable establishment to form another at random,
I wish to have the opinion of one who knows my
tastes and whom I can depend upon.

" I fear Bruce will turn out idle, though it is his
ambition to be great, and I lament that his father
changes his plans about him every day, and wishing
him to be everything is the sure means of making him
turn out nothing at last. I mention this to you, my
dear General, that, should Bruce hereafter have the
happiness of living a good deal in your society, you
may recommend him a steady line of conduct, and not
to put himself too forward in the world before he is fit
for it. This was a maxim dear Mr. Pitt always
preached to me, and was one of the instructions he gave
me about my brothers, and which I have most strictly
adhered to. James has risen gradually, and by his
own merits, and is now, thank God ! in a situation
which it has been the ambition of us both for many
years that he should some day or other be thought
worthy to fill.

"James loves the Duke" (of York) "as I do, and
would be ever ready to serve him with his life. The
Duke is all kindness to him (as he is to every one
about him), and when I know James to be perfectly
happy, I am so very thankful to Heaven for having
heard my prayers about him that I hardly think of

i8i2-i8i6] JAFFA 177

myself. What I have suffered is gone by, what I
still may have to suffer in this world God knows best ;
let it be what it will, may I only be resigned to my fate
and to His pleasure. The Turks give me every day
one proof of their superiority over Christians — their
submission to the will of Providence.

" Whenever Lord Sligo returns to England I hope
you will be kind to him. Poor man ! he only gets out
of one scrape to get into another. The longer I know
that man, the higher I think of the qualities of his
heart, and the more I regret that those of his head do
not equal that feeling which will be his ruin. Yet he
does not want sense in many things — far from it ; and
I still think if he marries some pleasing, sensible girl,
he may become a very respectable character. If not,
he will surely be duped by some designing woman or
other, and his character, as well as his fortune, will be
gone in a few years.

" If Lord Mulgrave ever mentions me, pray re-
member me kindly to him, for I really believe he had
a friendship for Mr. Pitt, though artful Canning used
formerly to take great pains to make me believe it was
all affected ; but since he has turned out himself a
perfect political chameleon, one may be permitted to
mistrust a few of his opinions. . . . Gen. Maitland is
very civil to me in his way, but his way is not yours.
I am not now all anxiety to see or hear what everybody
says who comes from Malta, though I understand you
are much regretted. I have not heard for some time
from Col. Misset, who really must have been, when in
good health, a very charming man, for he is vastly
interesting as he is, so upright, so like a gentleman in
thought, word, and deed. Of Anderson I know
nothing; for some months he has not written to me.
The Pacha of Acre and all the leading people in this
13

178 SIR SIDNEY SMITH [CH. iv

country continue to be vastly kind to me, even more
so than before, if possible, and I am upon the whole as
comfortable as a hermit can be."

As the whole of Lady Hester's correspondence with
her brother has been destroyed, it is impossible to
determine how or why her intention of leaving Syria
fell through. She never alludes to it again.

It was during this journey that a messenger arrived
from Sir Sidney Smith, announcing that he " had
come to take Lady Hester away." He brought several
letters, dated as far back as the preceding December.
The first began :

Sir Sidney Smith to Lady Hester

" MY DEAR COUSIN, — I received yours from Latakia.
On my way to England I spoke to Freemantle, whom
I saw at Gibraltar, to send you a frigate ; for I am at
present no longer in command. My nephew, Thurlow
Smith, has got the Undaunted (the ship which carried
Bonaparte to Elba), and he will contrive, if possible,
to come to you, as I say all I can of the necessity of
guarding our trade in that quarter. ... I shall leave
Vienna after the Congress for Florence and Leghorn,
when I hope to meet you in the month of April."

The second revealed his real object in writing. He
was planning an expedition against the Algerine
corsairs, which, though highly approved by four
crowned heads, hung fire for lack 01 funds. No one
would give him any money. Finding his debts pretty
large, he had given up his goods and chattels to his
creditors in England, and had brought his all to
Vienna on eight wheels. He was so far reduced as
to be obliged to beg a loan from his Syrian friends,
and he charged Lady Hester with the commission.
She was to deliver a grandiloquent letter he enclosed
to the Emir Beshyr, and prevail upon him to furnish
fifteen hundred men for the expedition.

Lady Hester absolutely refused. She pointed out
that to ask the Emir for troops, without the knowledge

i8i2-i8i6] SAYDA 179

of the Sultan, would be to endanger the prince's life ;
and she urged upon him the abandonment of his
undertaking.

" Not to admire your intention in the cause of
humanity, and the feelings which dictate your con-
duct, would be impossible ; but I could wish you to
reflect a little, and if the thing is to be undertaken,
to do it in the most open, fair, honourable way pos-
sible. I am much too proud to care for popularity —
you, much too vain not to like it. Therefore, take
care how you sink that which you have gained in the
country. There is one thing which you seem to have
forgotten, or to be ignorant of, that Turkey has been
almost as much exhausted by the plague as Europe
has been by war. Damascus only has buried above
one hundred thousand souls."

On her return to Sayda, the last search for hidden
treasure took place at the third site indicated ; this
time with little hope of success, and the same dismal
failure. Nothing was left but to dismiss the Zaym
with the present of a black slave and a cashmere
shawl, and to send in the bill to Constantinople. Of
course it was not paid ; and the whole expense neces-
sarily devolved upon her. She had to borrow the
money from Mr. Barker; and this, as the doctor
declares, was the first occasion on which she ever
found herself in debt. She now set about to econo-
mise ; dismissed all superfluous servants, and resumed
her secluded life in the Lebanon.

Lady Hester to General Oakes

"CONVENT OF MAR ELIAS,

"June 25/>fc, 1815.

" It gives me great pleasure to find that your health
has been able, at any rate, to withstand the great
fatigue and worry of those extravagant gaieties, of

i8o AN HONEST GREEK [CH. iv

which we Turks have no idea. Finding yourself so
much better when travelling should induce you, I
think, to make a tour in the spring and summer, and
to get out of the way of great dinners. To live like
a Turk for the time, and to take plenty of exercise
without heating yourself, and to live a great deal in
the open air would, I think, do you more good than
medicine — at least, it would but be fair to give it a
trial.

" I send you by Giorgio, a Greek in my service,
some tigers' skins, for I think I recollect that you
liked them. Here the covering of a horse reaches
to his tail, and the tigers' skins look very well when
made up with crimson; but silver and gold quite
spoils their effect, I think. Giorgio will explain
(should you like it) the fashion of Syria, for you to
improve upon it. You will find the boy not stupid,
but he is not all he ought to be, though honest in
money matters. Don't spoil him, pray, or take his
humble manner for humility, for he is at bottom
conceit itself; but he may amuse you, and I should
like to hear an account of your looks from some one
who has seen you lately.

" Your wine goes with him to Malta, from thence
it must be sent as it can. This is more Bruce's
present than mine, for he was so anxious to procure
you some, and did give a large order for wine, which
was put by, but sold because not transported directly,
which the plague would not allow of. My wine has,
alas ! been sold twice, though I paid half the value
before the grapes were ripe. You cannot, in any
possible way, procure any above a year old, for the
peasants want their jars, and still more the settling
of the wine, to make a sort of bad wine of, with
commoner grapes, which they quash up together,

i8i2-i8i6] MAR ELIAS 181

and sell to the mountaineers for their own use. I
send you also a box of soap like that used by the
Sultan's women.

" If ever you see Sir David Dundas, pray remember
me kindly to him. Tell him I am the Sir Pivot of the
East. I never forget, however, that I owe not a little
of my military fame to having borne the name of
his aide-de-camp when he commanded in Kent.
Many people do not like him because he did not make
a good Commander-in-chief. I like him the better for
it. There is but one sun, one moon, and one Com-
mander-in-chief. We want no more ! "

Not many days after this letter was written, Giorgio
was on his way to England, charged with a multitude
of commissions, of which the most important was to
bring back another doctor. Dr. Meryon, who had
been for some time heartily weary of his position,
now finally announced that he would remain no
longer.

CHAPTER V

MAR ELIAS — MR. SILK BUCKINGHAM — ANTIOCH — M. DIDOT —
DJOUN — " THE BABYLONIAN PRINCESS " — MISHMUSHY

1816-1823

SHORTLY after her return to Mar Elias, Lady Hester
heard, with great concern, that Mr. Bruce had got
involved in serious trouble at Paris. He had, together
with Sir Robert Wilson and Captain Hutchinson,
contrived the escape of Count Lavallette, who, con-
demned to death for high treason, had been got put
of prison on the very eve of his execution, having
excnanged clothes with his wife during their parting
interview. They had procured for him the uniform
of an English general-officer, and in this disguise he
passed through the barriers with Sir Robert unrecog-
nised, and made his way out of the country. This
was on April 24th, 1816, and Mr. Bruce was there-
upon thrown into prison. She sent him the kindest
of letters, offering to come herself if she could be of
use ; she had, indeed, at that time, some idea of going
to meet her brother in France. " James et mes ami(s)
ne cessent de me tourmenter pour les rejoindre, mais
la France n'est plus la France, pleine d'Anglais et de
Russes. Si nptre affaire est heureusement terminee,
je n'y viendrai que pour embrasser mon frere cheri,
et pour m'enfoncer dans quelque vieux chateau, loin
de tous les intrigans, que je deteste." This was
written in French, as it was to be shown to the King,
to whom she also indited a letter, imploring his
clemency for " ce jeune etourdi M. Bruce," " ce jeune
homme egare par la sensibilite de son caractere, qui
s'est entame dans une affaire aussi serieuse que
delicate." She ends by reminding H.M. " que 1'enfant

1816-1823] MAR ELIAS 183

gate de Pitt joint a ses principes politiques le meme
attachement pour votre personne," &c., &c.

The only person to whom she sent a copy of this
epistle was her cousin, the Marquess (afterwards
Duke) of Buckingham, who appears to have been in
her good graces ; (" Le Marquis," she writes, " quoique
nous sommes toujours en dispute, est un nomme
d'honneur ").

Lady Hester to the Marquess of Buckingham

" Here is a letter I have written to the King of
France ; you will tell me that some Jacobin assisted
me in writing it, but I can assure you I am alone in
my convent, and have only consulted the Spirit of my
Grandfather. ... I do nothing but weep over the
destruction of the finest country in the world, and
blush for my countrymen, who have been the cause of
its ruin. ... I have told you I never can, never will,
live in Europe, but that I shall come to see James and
take my final leave of you all, if you give me the
opportunity. . . . Scold me or not as you please, it
will be quite the same thing ; nothing can change
either my principles or my determinations. I have
too good an opinion of the King's heart to suppose he
can take ill what I have written ; if he does, I shall
only be sorry that I have been mistaken, not sorry for
what I have written. You are the only person I shall
send a copy of this letter to, because, as you are his
personal friend, he may mention it to you, and you
have only to tell him that I am what I am, and that
neither family nor friends can have the smallest influ-
ence over me when I take a thing in my head, nor do
I ever consult them upon any subject. James is a
soldier, and must attend to his duty, so I shall not
enter upon this subject with him in any way."

She had good reason to believe that her political
sentiments would be unpalatable to Louis XVIII.

184 "AN AGE OF TERROR" [CH. v

She was full of sympathy for Napoleon. At the time
when every English heart was still aglow with the
glories of Waterloo, all her letters (one in particular,
addressed to Mr. Coutts, " the only remaining friend of
my illustrious Grandfather ") are full of invectives
against the Allies, " who have violated the laws of
nations to the utmost, by deluging France with foreign
troops, . . . and degrading and imprisoning a man
acknowledged King by every Power in Europe."
Here is her confession of faith in full :

Lady Hester to the Marquess of Buckingham

" MOUNT LEBANON,

" April 22«rf, 1816.

" MY DEAR COUSIN, — For years, in writing to you, I
have been silent on politics ; but as it is probable this
letter will reach you, I avail myself of this opportunity
to give you my real opinions.

" You cannot doubt that a woman of my character,
and (I presume to say) of my understanding, must have
held in contempt and aversion all the statesmen of the
present day, whose unbounded ignorance and duplicity
have brought ruin on France, have spread their own
shame through all Europe, and have exposed them-
selves, not only to the ridicule, but to the curses of
present and future generations. One great mind, one
single enlightened statesman, whose virtues had
equalled his talents, was all that was wanting to effect,
at this unexampled period, the welfare of all Europe,
by taking advantage of events the most extraordinary
that have ever occurred in any era. That moment is
gone by ; an age of terror and perfidy has succeeded.
Horrible events will take place, and those who find
themselves farthest from the scenes which will be
acted may consider themselves the most fortunate.

11 Cease, therefore, to torment me ; I will not live in
Europe, even were I, in flying from it, compelled to

1816-1823] MAR ELIAS 185

beg my bread. Once only will I go to France, to see
you and James, but only that once. I will not be a
martyr for nothing. The grand-daughter of Lord
Chatham, the niece of the illustrious Pitt, feels herself
blush, as she writes, that she was born in England —
that England who has made her accursed gold the
counterpoise to justice ; that England who puts weep-
ing humanity in irons, who has employed the valour of
her troops, destined for the defence of her national
honour, as the instrument to enslave a freeborn people ;
and who has exposed to ridicule and humiliation a
monarch who might have gained the goodwill of his
subjects, if those intriguing English had left him to
stand or fall upon his own merits.

" What must be, if he reflects, the feelings of that
monarch's mind ? But it is possible that his soul is
too pure to enable him to dive into the views of others,
and to see that he has merely been their tool. May
Heaven inspire him with the sentiments of Henry IV.
(a name too often profaned), who would have trod the
crown under his feet rather than have received it upon
the conditions with which your friend has accepted it !

" You will tell me that the French army — the bravest
troops in the world, they who have made more sacrifices
to their national honour than any others — would not
listen to the voice of reason ; and you think I shall
believe you. Never ! If an individual, poor and
humble like myself, knows how to make an impression
(as I have done) upon thousands of wild Arabs, without
even bearing the name of chieftain, by yielding some-
what to their prejudices, and by inspiring confidence
in my integrity and sincerity, could not a king — a
legitimate king — guide that army, to which he owed
the preservation of his power, to a just appreciation of
their duty ? Without doubt he could, and would have

i86 ENGLAND'S "INTERFERENCE" [CH. v

done, too, if he had been left free to act. What was to
be expected from men, naturally incensed at the inter-
ference of those who, for twenty-five years, were held
up to their minds as their bitterest enemies, but that
which has happened ? In a word, never did tyrant,
ancient or modern, act so entirely against the interests
of humanity as those insensate dolts of our day, who
have violated the holy rights of peace, and have broken
the ties which, under any circumstances, should connect
man and man.

" And pray consider all I say as the real expression
of my thoughts. Oh ! if I said all I feel, I could fill a
volume ! but just now I am not very well in health,
and to take a pen in hand confuses my head, as it has
done ever since my attack of plague at Latakia. I
have, therefore, begged the Doctor to write this for me.

" You and James must let me know if you can come
and meet me in Provence, for to Paris I will not go.
The sight of those odious Ministers of ours, running
about to do mischief, would be too disgusting. You
may make faces or not — I care not a farthing ; for there
is no soul on earth who ever had, or ever will have,
any influence on my thoughts or my actions.

" Adieu, my dear cousin. Be as proud and as angry
as you please at my politics, but you will never change
them ; do not, however, on that account, cease to love

me, or forget

" Your ever affectionate

" H. L. S."

I will freely own that all this is incomprehensible to
me. I cannot understand how " the niece of the
illustrious Pitt," who professed the same principles,
and had been with him during the anxious years that
witnessed the subjugation of Europe by Napoleon, and
the threatened invasion of our own shores, could ever
have dictated this singular rhapsody. According to

1816-1823] MR. SILK BUCKINGHAM 187

her, the grand victory that heralded thirty blessed
years of peace only inaugurated " an age of terror and
perfidy," with " horrible events " in prospect!

About this time two English guests arrived at Mar
Elias. One of them, Mr. William Bankes (afterwards
M.P. for Cambridge University), was a casual visitor,
then engaged on a tour in the Levant ; but the other,
Miss Williams, was an old friend, who came to stay.
She was the lady's-maid who had come out from
England with Lady Hester in 1810, and been left with
a married sister at Malta. She now wished to offer
her services to her former kind mistress, thinking she
might stand in need of them, and Lady Hester was
greatly touched and pleased by this proof of devotion.
Miss Williams never left her again.

Mr. Bankes was very anxious to go to Palmyra, and
Lady Hester gave him a letter of introduction to the
King of the Desert. To prevent strangers from making
use of her name, she had agreed with the Emir and his
son Nasar that no one should be received as her friend
who was not furnished with credentials. " If there
comes to me," she said, " a great man, on whom I can
rely, and whose word you can trust as my own, who
wants to live among you, to see your mock fights, or a
camel killed and eaten, to ride on a dromedary in his
housings, &c., I will send him with two seals ; but if it
be another sort of person, I will send him with one."
Unfortunately, she had told this to Mr. Bankes, who,
curious to see how many seals she had judged him
worthy of, took an opportunity of opening her letter
on the road. There was only one ! He threw it
indignantly away, and resolved to dispense with her
patronage altogether. But he little foresaw the difficul-
ties he was throwing in the way of his journey. Once
he was turned back, once imprisoned, and finally
mulcted of a very considerable sum of money.

Soon after his departure, there arrived at Mar Elias
a fellow-traveller of his, Mr. Silk Buckingham, who
published an account of his visit in 1825 (Travels among
the Arab Tribes inhabiting the countries East of Syria and
Palestine). He speaks very gratefully of Lady Hester's
great kindness. " I had the good fortune and happiness
to remain under the hospitable roof of this distinguished
lady for a period of nine days, during which I received
the greatest possible kindness from every one in her

1 88 DESCRIPTION OF MAR ELI AS [CH. v

service, as well as from her Ladyship's own hands."
He arrived " in a state of extreme illness and exhaus-
tion," and was restored to " freshness and vigour " by
his stay. He kept no notes, and describes Mar Elias
only from recollection.

" The convent stands on the brow of a hill, looking
towards the sea, the whole of the way from it to the
town of Seyda being on a descent for a distance of
about five or six miles. It consists of a number of
separate rooms in a quadrangular building that sur-
rounds an inner court, made into a flower garden, into
which the doors of all these rooms open. The rooms
are neither spacious nor elegant ; but, most of them
being furnished after the English manner, with carpets,
tables, chairs, &c., offered an agreeable contrast to the
rooms generally seen in the East, the whole furniture
of which consists of a low range of cushions and
pillows surrounding the skirting, and, as it were,
fringing the junction between the wall and the floor.
Nothing in the house appeared unnecessary or
expensive ; but all that could conduce to comfort, and
that was procurable in the country, was seen in clean
and unostentatious simplicity. The proper number
of out-offices, kitchen, stables, &c., were attached to
the edifice ; and there were spare rooms and beds
enough to accommodate any small party of travellers
that might have occasion to remain here for a short
period in the course of their journey.

" The domestic establishment of her Ladyship con-
sisted, at this period, of an English physician, Dr.
Meryon, who lived in a separate house at a distance of
less than a mile ; an English attendant, Miss Williams,
and an English housekeeper, Mrs. Fry; a Levantine
secretary, of French descent, from Aleppo; and a
small number of male and female servants of the

1816-1823] LADY HESTER'S MODE OF LIFE 189

country. The fondness for beautiful horses, which
this lady passionately entertained, was judiciously,
but not ostentatiously, enjoyed by the possession of a
small stud of Arabs. . . .

" Lady Hester rose generally about eight ; walked
in the flower-garden, or read, till ten ; breakfasted on
tea and coffee in the English manner ; so much so,
indeed, that there was no distinction between her
breakfast table and one in England, except that finer
and fresher fruit were often produced there than it is
usual to see in London. An extensive correspondence,
which her Ladyship appeared to maintain with persons
of distinction in all parts of Europe, and even in India,
generally occupied her pen, or that of her secretary,
who wrote from dictation for several hours in the middle
of the day. . . . But with all this, a want of leisure was
never pleaded in excuse for attending to any applica-
tions for relief that were perpetually made, from what-
ever quarter they might have come. A walk, or a
ride on horseback, was generally indulged in before
dinner, which was always served soon after sunset,
and was a happy medium between frugality and
abundance, such as a prince might partake, and yet
such as the most temperate could not complain of.
The evening was almost invariably passed in con-
versation, and so powerful is my recollection, even at
this distant period, of the pleasure this afforded me,
that I could use no terms which would be too extra-
vagant in its praise. The early association with men
eminent for their talents, as well as their power ; the
habit of intense observation on all passing events ; the
abundant opportunities, afforded by years of travel,
to apply these habits to the utmost advantage ; all
these, added to a remarkable union of frankness and
dignity, gave a peculiar charm to the conversations of

190 ADORATION OF LADY HESTER [CH. v

this highly accomplished and amiable woman. . . .
We seldom retired before midnight. . . .

" In person, Lady Hester Stanhope is rather above
the usual height, with regular and delicately formed
features, a soft blue eye, fair and pale complexion, an
expression of habitual pensiveness and tranquil resig-
nation, which was rarely disturbed, except when her
countenance now and then lighted up with the indig-
nant feelings that always followed the recital of some
deed of cruelty and oppression. . . .

" If to be sincerely and generally beloved by those
among whom we reside, to possess power and influ-
ence with those who govern, and to have abundant
opportunities .of exercising these for the weak and
helpless, be sources of delight, it may be safely con-
cluded that Lady Hester Stanhope is one of the
happiest of human beings. The veneration in which
she is held, the affectionate terms in which she is
continually spoken of by those who live near and sur-
round her habitation, surpasses anything I remember
to have met with in the course of a tolerably extensive
peregrination through various countries of the globe.
Coupled, indeed, with the humble gratitude, confined
information, and general enthusiasm of feeling, which
characterize the inhabitants of that country, it amounts
almost to adoration ; so that the real good which this
lady does, and the undoubted respect paid to her by
all classes, have been magnified by every successive
narrator through whom the recital has passed, till it
has at last assumed the shape of the miraculous, and
surpassed even the extravagance of the Arabian Tales.
I remember some few instances of this, which I heard
on my way from Damascus to Seyda. One Druse
woman in the Lebanon, who recounted the tale to my
muleteer as I lay ill on my carpet before the hearth,

1816-1823] "THE KING'S DAUGHTER" 191

said that when the King's daughter (Bint-el-Melek, and
Bint-el-Sultan, the names by which Lady Hester
was known in Syria) entered Damascus, all voices
exclaimed, ' The city of Damascus, the great gate of
pilgrimage, and the key to the tomb of the prophet,
is taken from us ; her glory is fallen, her might cast
down, and her people for ever subdued. An infidel
has entered on horseback, and rebellion is subdued by
her beauty.' When she visited the Pacha in his divan,
and was shown the seat of honour on his right hand,
every one except the Pacha stood up to receive her, and
there went before her a messenger bearing presents
of the most costly description, from all the distant
countries of the Ind and the Sind " (India within and
India beyond the Ganges), "with perfumes of the
most delightful odour. But when these had been laid
at the Pacha's feet, the fair infidel herself drew from
beneath her robes a massive goblet of pure gold,
sparkling with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, and
filled to overflowing with the richest pearls, which
were, however, rivalled in beauty by the snowy white-
ness of her hand. Then, again, an Arab shepherd
regretted his ill-fortune in not having accompanied
the princess to Palmyra, ' as he understood that every
one who had gone with her, as indeed every one who
ever had anything to do with her, had been abund-
antly prosperous since.' As soon as it was known in
the desert that the princess intended to journey to
Tadmor, all the tribes were in motion, war was
changed to universal peace, and every sheick was
eager to have the honour of leading the escort.
Councils and assemblies were held at Horns and at
Hamar, at Sham " (Damascus) " and at Hhaleb "
(Aleppo) ; " messengers were sent in every direction,
and nothing was neglected that might serve to make

i92 A MIRACULOUS JOURNEY [CH. v

the way full of pleasure. When money was talked of,
every one rejected it with indignation, and exclaimed,
1 Shall we not serve the princess for honour? ' Every-
thing being settled, the party set out, preceded by
horsemen in front, with hedjeen " (dromedaries) " of
observation on the right and left, and camels laden with
provisions in the rear. As they passed along, the
parched sands of the desert became verdant plains,
the burning rocks became crystal streams, rich carpets
of grass welcomed them at every place at which they
halted for repose, and the trees under which they
pitched their tents expanded twice their usual size
to cover them with shade. When they reached the
broken city, the princess was taken to the greatest of
the palaces " (the Temple of the Sun), " and there gold
and jewels were bound round her temples, and all the
people did homage to her as Queen, by bowing their
heads to the dust. On that day Tadmor was richer
than Sham, and more peopled than Stamboul ; and if
the princess had only remained it would soon have
become the greatest of all the cities of the earth, for
men were pouring into it from all quarters, horsemen
and chiefs, merchants and munujemein " (astrologers),
" the fame of her beauty and benevolence having
reached to Bagdad and Ispahann, to Bokhara and
Samarcand, and the greatest men of the East being
desirous of beholding it for themselves.

" When the period approached for my quitting Mar
Elias, I felt extreme regret ; for I had scarcely ever
before concentrated so much of highly intellectual
pleasure in so short a space of time. . . . The stay had
been productive of the highest advantages to me in
every point of view. I had regained much of my former
health and strength in a surprising manner . . . and I
was now better prepared for my future journey than I

1816-1823] RECKLESS GENEROSITY 193

had ever been before. I was comfortably furnished with
clothes, an excellent horse, a trusty servant from Lady
Hester's own suite, transferred to me by her request,
and charged by her with a thousand injunctions as to
care and attention to my wishes and safety on the
road. I was accommodated with sufficient means to
defray my expenses till I should reach Aleppo, and
drawing authorised supplies from the Consul, Mr.
Barker. ... I was entrusted with various presents
from her Ladyship to the various Pachas and Gover-
nors in my way, accompanied by letters of introduction
to them, that I might offer these gifts in her name,
and thus secure their protection and aid."

Mr. Buckingham's description of Lady Hester, with
her " soft blue eye " and pensive resignation, is very
unlike all the other accounts we have of her, and does
not seem to fit in with any preconceived ideas of her
appearance. But as regards her boundless benevol-
ence and reckless generosity, and the power and
influence she exercised in the Lebanon, which almost
amounted to sovereignty, it exactly tallies with all we
know of her. The splendid myth of her fabulous
wealth attracted applicants from far and near, and
seemed to be borne out by her munificence, for none
were ever sent empty away. She delighted in helping
and giving, and it may be safely said no hand was
ever stretched out to her in vain. Whoever was in
trouble or distress — be he whom he might — had a sure
claim on her sympathy and protection, and became
her charge, sometimes for the rest of his life.

Her power in the Mountain was already so fully
recognised, that even the redoubtable Prince of the
Desert, Mohanna-el-Fadel, sent to solicit her aid.
His son, the Emir Nasar, had embroiled himself with
the Pacha of Damascus, who vowed to have his life,
if ever he could be caught ; and he supplicated " his
dear sister, the Syt Hester," to intercede on his behalf.
One of his chieftains, Abd-el-Rasak, presented himself
at Mar Elias, bringing, with his letter, a colt as an
offering. " It was a fine sight," writes Dr. Meryon,

14

I94 PUNISHMENT OF THE ANSARY [CH. v

" to behold the Bedouins come and seek protection of
a woman and a stranger."

She had only recently made proof of the extent of
her authority. Some time before, a French Colonel
of Engineers, named Bontin, who had been sent by
the Emperor on a mission to Syria, was made away
with on the road between Hamar and Latakia. Lady
Hester had warned him of the danger of crossing the
Ansary Mountains, but he made light of her appre-
hensions, and set out on his journey with only two
Mahometan servants. The sale of his watch at
Damascus first excited suspicion as to his fate, and
Lady Hester forthwith despatched three emissaries on
the track he was believed to have followed, and
ascertained that he had, as she predicted, been robbed
and murdered. She at once urged the French Consuls
at the different towns along the coast to write to
Constantinople and obtain orders for tracing and
punishing the murderers without loss of time. Noth-
ing, however, was done. The Ansary were a powerful
and savage tribe, with whom no one cared to interfere.
She then wrote herself to several of the European
Ambassadors at the Porte, but still without effect, and
at last bravely determined to take the matter into her
own hands. She sent letters, both in Turkish and
Arabic, to the Pachas of Aleppo, Damascus, Tripoli
and Acre, asking each of them to contribute a certain
number of troops with which to range the mountains
of the Ansary, search for Colonel Bontin's remains,
discover and punish his murderers, and get back the
stolen property. " Her appeals were successful,
and accomplished what all tne influence of all the
Ambassadors could not have effected, what even the
commands of the Grand Seignor himself could not
have carried into execution — a union and co-operation
of elements the most discordant." Mustafa Aga
Berber, the Governor of the district, who was in
command of the expedition, sent her word that, as he
was marching " at the Syt's bidding to do the Syt's
business," and fight in her quarrel, it was only fitting
that she should arm her champion, and Lady Hester
accordingly presented him with a brace of pistols.
She, too, directed the movements of the troops, as,
from the knowledge of the locality she had gained
through her messengers, she alone could do, and

1816-1823] FRANCE VOTES HER THANKS 195

Mustafa carried fire and sword into the Ansary fast-
nesses, burnt the villages of the murderers, sent their
heads as trophies to Damascus, and recovered the
whole of the stolen property. The fame of this
exploit spread far and wide throughout Syria, and
Lady Hester received the proud title of Protectress
of the Unfortunate. Nor were the French themselves
backward in acknowledging the debt they owed her
for avenging their countryman. " Colonel Bontin
received a most honourable reception from Lady
Hester Stanhope" (I am quoting the Courrier Franfais
of April 2Qth, 1830), "and, proud of her powerful pro-
tection, he was on the point of succeeding in his enter-
prise" (to explore Syria and penetrate into Arabia),
"when he was assassinated in the neighbourhood ot
Damascus by the Arabs, who sought to rob him of a
bag of coins which he had in his possession. France
knows how the murder of this illustrious traveller was
avenged by her Ladyship, who caused his assassins
to be decapitated and obtained the restitution of his
baggage, which she effected purely by her personal
influence and efforts." She duly received a vote ot
thanks from the Chamber of Deputies, proposed, in an
eloquent speech, by Count Delaborde.

The chastised tribe, strange to say, bore no malice.
They were the same wild Ansary Arabs by whom,
several years before, Lady Hester had been adopted,
and that she was in the habit of speaking of as her
"family." They might well have sought to revenge
the treatment they had received. Yet, in the autumn
of this very year, not long after Mustafa Aga Berber's
return, she went for two months to Antioch, where
she found herself in the midst of them, and though she
took up her abode in a secluded and unprotected
cottage outside the town, she was never molested in
the slightest degree. She explained to them that
" she had indeed revenged the death of a Frenchman,
of a man who was her country's enemy, because she
knew that all just persons abhorred deeds committed
against the defenceless in the dark — deeds such as
must be disowned by the brave and good every-
where."

Her journey to Antioch was undertaken partly to
meet Mr. Barker and partly to get out of the way of
the Princess of Wales, who had recently landed at

196 FINANCIAL WORRIES [CH. v

Acre, and might, she thought, be expected at Sayda.
She was particularly anxious not to come into contact
with her ; but she left the doctor and Miss Williams
at Mar Elias, with instructions to offer her due hos-
pitality and every attention in their power. The Prin-
cess, however, did not come.

She had appointed this meeting with the Consul-
General, in order to settle accounts with him. The
following letter (undated), addressed to General Ander-
son, evidently belongs to this period ; it is the first in
which she alludes to the money troubles that hence-
forward were to supersede politics in her correspond-
ence. It is melancholy to remember that for twenty-
three years — all the remaining years of her life — she
was never again free from this haunting incubus of
debt. She mentions that her brother, " that dear,
generous creature," had lent her all his savings,
amounting to £500.

Lady Hester to General Anderson

. . . "This soaring and active mind is no merit of
mine. I was endowed with it, I suppose, for some
purpose, and I should not, I imagine, be answering
that for which I was created, were I to become a grub
on the face of the earth, and make no exertion to be
useful to my country and my friends. . . . You will
be told that I have purchased the friendship of Turks
a poids a" or; but I can assure you that until now I
never made a present, excepting a gold snuff-box, that
Lord Sligo gave me, to the late Pacha of Damascus,
Seticlar or Sword-bearer to the Sultan, a man of the
first rank, who had given me two fine horses and
treated me with every sort of distinction ; and a pair
of fine pistols to the commander of the troops sent
against the Ansaries, to revenge the death of a
European assassinated by them (see p. 194). Respect-
ing presents, all I can say about them is, that it is a
toll every one must pay in the East. Strangers may
sometimes escape, as a man may by galloping through

1816-1823] RESPECT DUE FROM PRESENTS 197

a turnpike gate, and get off by saying he was a
foreigner, and did not know the customs, and had no
money about him. But, resident in the country, these
shuffles will not do. About four years ago, Bruce
went to take leave of the Mohallim of a town where
he had spent some time. The Governor treated him
at first with great respect and politeness ; but, after
les ceremonies dusage were over, he waved his hand,
and his attendants disappeared. The Governor began
his conversation to this effect : ' And so, young man,
you make me no present ? ' ' No/ said Bruce, ' I have
been shipwrecked, and I have nothing by me worth
your acceptance.' ' Oh ! that is a fine excuse,' said the
Mohallim; 'you have money, I suppose — why, then,
did you not send to Aleppo, and buy a few pieces of
Aleppo stuff to present to me ? It is true I do not
care for the value of your stuffs, nor do I wish for
a present from interested motives. Had you given
me one, I should have given you a horse three times
its value, but I desire to be treated with respect, and
not lowered in the eyes of those who surround me.'
He then said that this conversation would serve as a
lesson to Bruce, and, softening his tone, said some
civil things, and there the visit ended ; but it required
a vast deal of negotiation to set the matter right.
I really believe that the general motive of almost all
Turks, in making presents, is the idea that they are
a mark of respect. ... To your son, in Eastern
fashion, I should say : May his name rise among
perfumes to Heaven, which may bless him."

After her return to Mar Elias in November, she
received a visit from M. Didot, a gentleman attached
to the French Embassy at Constantinople, who was
then travelling in Syria, and published an account of
his interview in his Notes aun Voyage fait dans le
Levant en 1816 et 1817.

198 M. DIDOT [CH. v

" I had previously presented to M. Baudin, a young
Frenchman, the dragoman of Miladi Stanhope, the
letter of introduction that Mr. Salt had been kind
enough to give me to the new Queen of Palmyra, who
invited me to dinner the day after my arrival, together
with M. Desgranges. She then inhabited a former
convent, which she has had repaired, about two
leagues from Sayda, near the little village of Abra,
lying at the foot of the first spurs of the Lebanon.
After passing through some rooms inhabited by her
suite and her servants, all of whom are Arabs, except
one lady's-maid, we were ushered into a vast apart-
ment, where we found two persons in Oriental dress
seated on the divan. We saluted them in Arabic, but
soon recognised Miladi Stanhope and our Consul at
Tripoli, M. Regnault; the former by her smooth,
beardless face, the latter by the hump on his back,
ill-disguised by the long garments he occasionally
wears. Miladi received me with affability and dis-
coursed at great length on European politics, for that
is the subject of conversation she prefers, and seems
the best suited to the gravity of her disposition. She
said she first began to wear the Oriental costume
when, after a shipwreck at Rhodes in which she lost
all her possessions, she found herself obliged to buy
the dress of the country, and having learnt to appre-
ciate its comfort and utility, she had ever since retained
it, and would now feel very ill at ease in her European
women's clothes if she were obliged to resume them.
The death of her uncle Pitt deprived her of the
influence she had obtained in London ; and her grief
at the loss of her brother and of General Moore, whom
she was to have married — both killed in the same
battle in Spain — had inspired her with that profound
disgust of the world which had so long retained her

1816-1823] MOUNT LEBANON 199

in the solitude of Mount Lebanon. She spoke of
divers visits she had paid to Pachas, and showed me
the costumes she had worn on these occasions, all of
the richest possible description. She also explained
to me the different postures to be assumed in the
presence of great personages, which form part of the
etiquette all Turks must rigorously observe, as the
attitude, no less than the costume, betokens a man's
position in life.

" As soon as she arrived in Syria, Lady Stanhope
sent for a Capidji Bachi with firmans from Constanti-
nople, and proceeded, with a great train in attendance,
to the neighbourhood of Ascalon and Caesarea, to
search for treasure in a spot indicated by an old MS.
They excavated the ground for a long time, but no
treasure was discovered ; only two colossal statues,
one of which, representing Bacchus, was very fine.
She had them both broken up, in order, as she told
me, that the Turks might not take it into their heads
that she had induced the Porte to incur this expendi-
ture for her own personal advantage ; and as this
action was in conformity with their religious principles,
she hoped thus to acquire greater influence over them.
In fact, I afterwards heard from M. Bertrand, one of
her dragomans, that she had at one time intended to
found a new religion in these parts, by the union of
Christianity and Mahometanism ; and that she also
had some hopes of the Jews, because she thought the
name of Esther, which she bore, would impress them ;
but, having soon perceived the difficulties of such an
enterprise, she promptly gave it up.

" I asked her to give us an account of her journey to
Palmyra, which I had heard much spoken of in the
East; and she described, in great detail, and with a
certain satisfaction, how she had made her entry, lance

200 THE PALMYRA JOURNEY [CH. v

in hand, in her Oriental dress, followed by thirty
camels, which had brought into the desert all that was
choicest of European luxuries. She enumerated the
many presents she had given to the sheicks, and told
how she had, during three nights, illuminated the ruins
of Palmyra, where she had herself crowned. I thought
at the time that some Oriental exaggeration must have
adorned this narrative, but I afterwards heard, from
several persons who had accompanied her, that it was,
in the main, perfectly correct ; and that, in this expedi-
tion, she and Mr. Bruce spent nearly 30,000 piastres.
Accordingly, she is called Queen of Palmyra, and the
credit she obtained, aided by her money, gained her
influence with the Pachas. It was, in a great measure,
owing to her that the Porte determined to avenge the
death of Colonel Bontin, with whom she was well
acquainted, and who was assassinated only a few days
after he left her house. By her urgent letters, and by
her presents, she induced the sheicks to march against
the rebellious tribes, and carried this war to a successful
issue, thereby inspiring fear and consideration for the
Franks, and giving them better security for travelling
in the East.

" Some heavy clouds, gathering on the Lebanon,
warned us that we might be overtaken by a storm, and
obliged us to leave Miladi sooner than we should have
wished. She made us carry away with us, as a
precaution, two abas, large cloaks of a striped material
fabricated in the mountains, which we presently found
of the greatest use."

This was, as far as I can make out, the only visitor
to whom Lady Hester ever mentioned her engagement
to Sir John Moore.

About this time, her emissary, Giorgio, arrived from
England, laden with commissions, and bringing with

1816-1823] DEPARTURE OF DR. MERYON 201

him an English surgeon to replace Dr. Meryon, who
finally took his leave in January, 1817. Here, then, we
part company with the circumstantial journal of Lady
Hester's sayings and doings that he kept during the
seven years he was in her service, and virtually lose
sight of her till 1830. Though she was a voluminous
letter writer, from this time forward but little of her
correspondence has been preserved. This is the last
letter I can find addressed to General Oakes :

Lady Hester to General Oakes

" MOUNT LEBANON,

"Jan. $M, 1817.

" I was so happy at receiving your letter by Giorgio,
for it was so long since I had heard from you, and
never ceased to feel anxious about your health, as well
as about all that interests you. This letter will be
given to you by Dr. Meryon. He will have so much
to tell you about me, and his travels in these parts,
that I shall not allude to either one or the other subject.

" As for that levity and inconsequence with which
you reproach some of our young men, it is much to be
lamented. Real wildness can scarcely be deemed a
fault in youth, and most particularly in those who
have no sort of restraint put upon their actions ; but
neglect, trifling conduct, saying more than a person
means, is quite another thing, and very contemptible
in my opinion, which may be a severe one ; but if all
these things are looked over and tolerated in young
men who ought to set an example to society, what will
the world come to at last? ... I am happy to hear
that my old friend Sir David is well; pray always
mention me to him when you have an opportunity, for
I have a great respect for him, and am convinced
that his unpopularity and singular conduct at one
moment was a finesse, for which we ought all to thank
him."

202 DUKE OF YORK [CH. v

Lady Hester to H.R.H. the Duke of York

" MOUNT LEBANON,

"January 1st, 1817.

"SiR,— Y.R.H. put a dangerous instrument into my
hands when you were so kind as to give me the
beautiful inkstand. The first use I make of a pen so
valued by me must be to offer you my sincerest thanks
for this generous mark of your recollection. As you
mention, Sir, the perfumes being unknown in England,
perhaps you might like to know why aloe wood is
scarce. It comes from a mountain called Gebel El-Kaf,
fifteen days south of Mecca. This mountain is covered
with aloe trees, but it is so infested with the most
ferocious wild beasts that no one dare ascend it,
Therefore, the Arabs who live the nearest to it portion
out bits of land at the foot of the mountain, and make
dykes in it. When the tremendous storms take place,
which often tear up trees by the roots, and always
scatter their branches, the floods of rain bring down
pieces of the aloe wood into these dykes. When the
weather clears up, each Arab repairs to his spot of
ground, to pick up that which may have fallen to his
lot ; the wood is then buried for forty or fifty days, to
improve its smell, which gives it that black, rotten
appearance. The pilgrims bring it to Damascus, where
the harems of the great men are constantly full of a
cloud of its smoke. The very luxurious refresh the
air with fountains of rose-water, which play from five
to twenty-five feet high.

" There are likewise other forests in the desert,
thirty-five days distant, west of Mecca, where a vast
quantity of gold dust is to be found ; but as there is no
water except at two places upon the road, out of forty
camels and forty men which set out every year from
Mecca to collect this dust, seldom ten of each return.

1816-1823] THE KING OF BUGS 203

" If I said half what I feel about Y.R.H.'s goodness
to James, I fear I should bore you, but I cannot
altogether pass over the act of kindness you were
pleased to announce to me. I believe, Sir, it is only
in Arabic that one may say to a great man all one
wishes to say without being impertinent ; therefore,
as I cannot write in that language, I must reflect in
silent gratitude upon all we owe you. I am, Sir,

" Y.R.H.'s most attached and devoted servant,

" HESTER LUCY STANHOPE."

Lady Hester to Sir Joseph Banks

" MOUNT LEBANON,

" January yd, 1817.

" DEAR SIR, — I was really concerned to find by the
letter Giorgio brought me last November that you
were so much indisposed. I pray for your recovery
as for a universal blessing to the friends of humanity
and science.

" I have written you many letters within these last
two years, and sent no less than three boxes of the
root you wished to have, of various ages and qualities,
together with all the information I could pick up
about it ; but I fear that some, if not all, these boxes
have been lost, as well as the admirable honey of
Mount Lebanon, which I thought you might like.
The Turks eat a vast deal of honey, and consider it
very wholesome, except in very hot weather, when
they find it heating. It is pressing honey in England
which makes it so bad, as the wax gets mixed with
it ; this was allowed to run off of itself, and was quite
pure in every respect. I must now give you an
account of the King of Bugs for your amusement,
which I got from the Abyssinians, who remain some
time with me. There is a little animal, not unlike a

204 NATURAL HISTORY [CH. v

worm with wings, which sucks flowers like a bee ; it
lives underground, where it fabricates a sort of jar,
quite round, the inside of which is varnished in the
most beautiful manner ; this jar communicates with
the surface of the earth by a tube about three or four
feet long, and serves as a passage for the little animal
to go up and down. In its house is found a liquor
like green water, which is used by the Abyssinians
as a sovereign remedy in almost all stomach com-
plaints, and in other disorders. The entrance of the
tube is only to be discovered by watching the jackals,
which come at night and scratch up the ground,
which makes this medicine scarce. I hoped to have,
nevertheless, sent you a bottle, but the death of my
female Abyssinian friend, and no caravan having come
this year from that country, renders it uncertain
whether or not I shall ever receive what she wrote
for from her brother, who commands a province, and
who is mentioned by Lord Valentia in his book.
Enclosed is a paper which may be interesting to you ;
it strikes me that the cow must have eaten of the
leaves of the Harmodatele, which are excellent and
tempting in their appearance when fresh, and which
grow in small quantities in the neighbourhood of
Damascus, for the Priest was affected, as well as
Mon. 1'Eveque, exactly in the same way as a person
who takes too large a quantity of the root, a violent
sickness and internal heat.

" Dr. Meryon (my late Physician) is not the least
of a philosopher, so I have had no one to set me right,
or assist me in my pursuits of any kind. I believe the
Doctor can give you little more information about
the natural curiosities of this part of the world, than
if he never had visited it, except the cave near Palmyra,
into which he crept upon all fours, and I did not. I

1816-1823] ABYSSINIA 205

am trying to raise you a tree from a sucker of what
I am told is the real mandrake spoken of in the
Scriptures, and for which there is no European name.
There is a tradition in Mount Lebanon of the women
being shut up during the time it was in flower; it
produces no seed. I have a great deal more to say
about the natural productions of Abyssinia, but as
I have not yet quite given up the idea of receiving
some specimens of the furs of different animals, and
the seeds of several curious plants, I will put off for
the present saying anything about them. The greatest
fault I lhave to find in the Abyssinians is, their love
for every sort of liquor which intoxicates, but they
are a clever, courageous people, rather inclined to
be idle, and very proud ; but with management might
be made something of. The stagnation of trade in
India, and in England, would render the civilization
of Abyssinia, and the encouragement of commerce
with that country, a very politic measure, for when
old resources fail, we ought to discover new ones.

" I was vastly happy in receiving a letter from
General Grenville, in which he speaks favourably of
his health As I think him about the best man in
the world, I was more than distressed when I im-
agined he was suffering from a serious illness. Dr.
Meryon has a few seeds of the Cimach, or Kimach, tree,
which perhaps you may not have in your hot-house.
I got them from one of the Mamelukes of Djezza
Pacha, who was brought up with the late Ali Pacha,
who planted these trees at Acre. ... As for Sheick
Ibrahim" (Burckhardt) " of whom I have spoken so
often, I think the same of his talents as a traveller ;
but the more I hear of him and know of him, the less
will I think of his heart, as he is full of envy and
malice, and very insincere. And as to your namesake

206 DEATH OF "CITIZEN STANHOPE" [CH. v

William Bankes,1 I cannot endure him, and I wish I
could pass a bill for him, to be obliged to change a
name which such a character can have no right to, if
you have one at least. He told Napoleon he was
your relation ; it is impossible."

In April of this year, Lady Hester received the
tidings of her father's death, and wrote to her brother,
on his accession to the title, what he truly describes
as " a most cruel and insulting letter." I should be
sorry to reproduce it. I will only quote one passage,
as it furnishes the sole explanation I have ever met
with of their life-long breach. Her theme throughout
is ingratitude — " the ingratitude which you have shown
to all your best friends. It was wishing to eradicate,
if possible, from your character the seeds of that
abominable vice (a vice unknown to wild beasts) that
occasioned the rupture between us. Far be it from
me ever to wish to be upon friendly terms with you,
should you still persist in the perverse opinions
which have lowered you in the eyes of those you most
courted, and deprived you of their real confidence."
This, and another allusion to "new-formed connec-
tions," points to political differences between them,
but the chief ground of offence was probably a more
personal one. She had, early in life, rendered him a
signal service by effecting his escape from Chevening,
for which he was abundantly thankful, and this sense
of obligation, as well as that of his utter inexperience,
led him gratefully to accept her guidance and dictation.
But this kind of tutelage could not possibly last. As
he took his place in the world, he naturally formed
his own opinions, and acted upon them, and she
probably often found her advice disregarded. She
would bitterly resent this neglect, for, of all things in

1 May 28th, 1820. "Mr. Bankes had seen Lady Hester Stanhope
in Syria ; she was living in a small but comfortable house, at the foot
of Mount Lebanon, in full persuasion of her being one day called to
the assembling of God's chosen people, as Queen of Jerusalem. This
fancy, which has taken full possession of her mind, arose (as she
herself relates) from a prophecy which the famous Brothers made to
her many years ago, that she would pass some years in the East and
reign at Jerusalem. She has already exceeded the probationary
terms by two years." — Memoirs of Viscotint Stratford de Redclijfle.

1816-1823] DJOUN, MOUNT LEBANON 207

the world, she most delighted in giving advice. Even
in this letter, after three angry pages of taunts and
reproaches, there follows a fourth full of good advice,
showing how easily he may become "a father to those
around him, and a pillar of the State." But the real
reason of her writing appears in the postscript : " I
shall not leave any part 01 the sum coming to me on
the estate ; when ready, you will please to place the
whole in Coutts' hands. Murray" (her lawyer) "and
James will inform you what is to be done with the
£10,000 poor Charles left me."1

These two sums ought surely to have cleared off
all Lady Hester's liabilities, and left her a free woman.
But it was not to be, for we presently find her
plunging into fresh expenditure. Either in this or
the following year, she removed from Mar Elias to
another deserted monastery higher up in the moun-
tains, near the village of Dar Joun, or Djoun. No
lovelier situation could have been selected for a
dwelling; but the building was disused and dilapidated,
requiring a new roof and very extensive repairs.2
She built many new additions, very considerably
enlarging it, and laid out, on what had been a bare
mountain top, terraced gardens and orchards, to
which water was conveyed by conduits from a dis-
tance. The whole was surrounded by a lofty wall,
giving it somewhat the appearance of a fortress, and
the principal entrance was through a strong and well-
guarded gate. Nor was it easy to go in and come
out unperceived, for the interior was a kind of
labyrinth composed of detached buildings, irregularly
grouped round little courts and gardens, and traversed
by trellised passages, which formed the only means
of communication. Dr. Meryon tells us that " owing
to the different enclosures, wherein servants with

1 This letter remained, I believe, unanswered, and Lady Hester
never wrote again.

1 " You may imagine," she writes to the doctor, " what my expenses
have been when I tell you that half of this house" (Djoun) "was
totally unroofed, like a ruin, when I took it ; the other half so
rotten that it rained in in every direction — not a room for dragomen,
for men servants, for provisions of any kind ; not an out-house ;
not a place walled in ; its only merit was having a little space,
which the other house" (Mar Elias) "had not ; the roof of which,
after the earthquake, became so unsafe that I was obliged to cover
it at a great expense,"

208 A HARBOUR OF REFUGE [CH. v

different occupations lived, a person attempting to
enter or to escape was certain oi being seen, and
almost equally certain of being stopped." Lady
Hester's own dwelling was on the S.W. side, where
the mountain falls away precipitously, and the distant
blue of the sea is seen through a gap in the hills.
Her rooms opened on the terraces of her private
garden, the beautiful garden with its arbours, marble
fountain, and thickets of roses, in which she took her
daily walk. She loved her flowers, and they were the
only luxury she permitted herself, for nothing could
be plainer and simpler than her manner of life. No
one entered here but by her special favour, and
everything pertaining to herself was kept rigidly
apart from the rest — her kitchen, even, was separate.

She intended this place to be, as it actually became,
a house of call for refugees, for any poor homeless
wanderer who, proscribed and pursued, might be
drifting helplessly about in the Lebanon. To them
she could offer an inviolable asylum, for whoever
crossed her threshold had set foot in sanctuary. Not
even the powerful Prince of the Mountain — not Ibra-
him Pacha himself — ever ventured — or rather, I should
say, succeeded — in meddling with any one under Lady
Hester's protection. For this purpose Mar Elias
would have been far too small, but at Djoun she was
able at one time (after the siege of Acre) to harbour
as many as two hundred refugees. Yet, for some
reason or other, her doctor was never lodged within
its precincts.

Once installed in her new dominion, Lady Hester
never left it again. She lived for more than twenty
years at Djoun, and during the latter part of the time
never went outside her garden wall. It is from this
period we may date her complete adoption of Eastern
customs and an Eastern mode of life. Though she
had assumed the dress of the country, and conformed
to many of its habits, she had still retained some of
her own ; but these she now gradually discarded,
and day by day became more of an Oriental. The
doctor brought out by Giorgio went home again in
a year or two, disliking the East and Eastern ways,
and Doctor Meryon was summoned back to resume
his former post. This time, however, his stay was
brief, and he did not journalize. " I found," he says,

1816-1823] DJOUN 209

"that her Ladyship had in the meantime completely
familiarized herselt with the usages of the East, con-
ducting her establishment entirely in the Turkish
manner, and adopting even much of their medical
empiricism. Under these circumstances, and at her
own suggestion, I again bade her adieu, as I then
believed, for the last time." l He was replaced by an
Italian. The English housekeeper, Mrs. Fry, also
went home, and Elizabeth Williams now remained
her sole English attendant.

For some time past, Lady Hester's mind had been
much occupied with the Oriental kingdom that had
been promised to her many years before in England.
When Brothers was, by Mr. Pitt's orders, being taken
to prison as a fortune-teller, he begged hard to be
allowed to see Lady Hester, and told her that "she
would one day go to Jerusalem, and lead back the
chosen people ; that, on her arrival in the Holy Land,
mighty changes would take place in the world, and
that she would pass seven years in the desert." She
had always remembered this prediction, and often
spoke of it, though more often than not in jest, and
freely allowed her friends to make fun of it. While
she was living at Brusa, the party she was with,
comprising Lord Guilford, Mr. Fazakerley, and Mr.
Gaily Knight, used to amuse themselves by calling
her " Queen Hester ! Hester, Queen of the Jews ! "
But since her arrival in Syria the prophecy had as-
sumed graver proportions, for it had been twice re-
peated. She had met at Haifa a half-crazed Frenchman,
who called himself General Loustaneau, and professed
to have served in the native Indian armies. He lived
on the alms of the charitable, and passed himself
off as a prophet, always walking about with a Bible
under his arm. He was now ready to produce a
number of texts to prove that her coming had been

1 He did, however, return twice ; once for a few months in 1830
and again in 1837, remaining till 1838. It was only on these last
two occasions, when she had attained a certain degree of celebrity,
that he adopted the practice — unprecedented, as I hope and believe,
in the case of a physician — of writing down all she said to him with
a view to publication. He spent in all sixteen months at Djoun, and
it was from the materials then collected that he compiled the three
volumes of Memoirs that appeared in 1845. The Travels of Lady
Htster Stanhope, also in three volumes, were published in the fol-
lowing year.

MO FORTUNE-TELLING [en. v

announced in the Scriptures, and that she was " the
only real Queen." Again, one of her servants, an old
man named Metta,1 who, like all Syrians, had a pro-
found belief in astrology, magic, and what is now
called Spiritualism, told her of a prophetic book of
which he alone knew the secret, and could produce,
if she would lend him a horse. She did so, and he
went and fetched an Arabic MS. (a precious loan he
was only to retain for a few hours), from which
he translated the following passage for her benefit :
" A European woman will come and live on Mount
Lebanon at a certain epoch. She will build a house
there, and obtain power and influence greater than
a Sultan's. A boy without a father will join her,
and his destiny will be fulfilled under her wing. The
coming of the Mahdi will follow, but be preceded by
war, pestilence, and other calamities. The Mahdi
will ride a horse born saddled ; and a woman will
come from a far country to partake in the mission."

It was curious that the words of an English fortune-
teller should be confirmed by two utter strangers in
another quarter of the globe ; and the coincidence
made a profound impression on Lady Hester. It
seemed to her to place the matter in a new light, and
hold out fascinating possibilities. She had become
an Oriental in more senses than one, and now began
seriously to ask herself whether, after all, the pro-
phecy might not come true. Part of it, at least, had
been accomplished. She had come to her appointed
kingdom, had taken up her abode there, and obtained
a degree of power and influence so unprecedented
as to be little short of miraculous. Had she not been
crowned already as Queen of Palmyra ? Might she
not be called upon to play a great part in the
East?

1 I should mention that Lady Hester provided for both these
prophets. Metta, on his death,-bed, bequeathed to her his three
sons ; and she duly took charge of them. The General subsisted
on her bounty for the remainder of his life, which proved a very long
one. They never met, for they could never agree ; the prophet was
dogmatic and choleric, Lady Hester intolerant of contradiction ; so
she wisely judged it best they should remain apart. Yet not only
did she support him, but in her lavish generosity she even sent
money to h>s family in France ; and in 1825 one of his sons came to
Djoun, and there died of fever. She caused him to be buried in a
vault she had constructed in the garden for her own burial-place.

1816-1823] A DREAMER OF DREAMS 211

The love of rule had come to her almost in her
cradle ; even in the nursery she had acted " the
Empress Queen " ; and now, grown and strengthened
with advancing years, it had become an absorbing
passion. She had, as 1 have said, unbounded con-
fidence in her own powers ; and it must be owned
that she had displayed a rare aptitude for government
in her management of the half-civilized, credulous,
and emotional people with whom she had to deal.
Besides the splendid courage that won their respect
and admiration, and her father's iron will, she had
a great deal of tact and discernment, and knew, as
she said, how to "feel her ground." She studied
their character, their prejudices, and their supersti-
tions, and soon discovered how wide-spread and deep-
rooted was the belief in supernatural agencies. She
was quick to perceive what a formidable weapon was
here ready made to her hand, and prompt in taking
advantage of it.

She had herself ceased to regard the supernatural
from a Western point of view. She was studying
astrology and the occult sciences ; seeking out der-
vishes, magicians, and " wise men " to be her teachers,
and diligently at work to take her degree among them.
She so far succeeded as to become an adept in reading
the stars, a discerner of the thoughts and minds of
men, and a dreamer of dreams.

How far, in the first instance, she actually believed
in her mission as the inspired Queen of Jerusalem is,
1 think, doubtful. She was, for so clever a woman,
extraordinarily credulous, with a natural leaning to
the marvellous and mysterious, which had always
more or less attracted her. On the other hand, we
cannot ignore the keen delight she had formerly taken
in mystifying and humbugging others. Perhaps the
truth is midway, and that she only partly persuaded
herself to believe. Be this as it may, as time went on,
she was unmistakably and vehemently in earnest;
though, even then, doubts and misgivings seem to
have not unfrequently crossed her mind. " 1 fancied,"
writes Kinglake, "that 1 could distinguish the brief
moments during which she contrived to believe in
herself, from those long and less happy intervals in
which her own reason was too strong for her."
It will be remembered that the Arabic MS. intro-

212 LADY HESTER'S RELIGION [CH. v

duced a new factor in the prophecy, the Mahdi or
Messiah. It was now he, and not Lady Hester, who
was to lead the chosen people to Jerusalem ; but she
was to have the place of honour on his right hand
in the triumphal procession. As Queen of Jerusalem,
she was bound to believe that the Messiah was yet
to come ; and she got over this difficulty by wresting
the words of John the Baptist, " There cometh One
after me," from their true meaning, and ignoring their
application to Our Lord. Yet she certainly told
Lamartine that she was a Christian. Here, however,
I am approaching ground on which I cannot venture
to tread, for the subject of her religious opinions is
one that is utterly and hopelessly out of my reach.
I often wonder whether she could have explained
them herself; at all events, she never succeeded in
making them clear to any of her visitors. Perhaps
M. de Lamartine's conclusion is the most probable,
that they were a combination of the Christian, Jewish,
and Mahometan creeds. She was, in truth, full of
contradictions. She was a fatalist of the true Eastern
type, yet full of Western zeal for setting matters right,
and ordering them anew ; as relentless in her enmities
as an Old Testament Jew, yet with all a Christian's
love and pity for the poor and unfortunate. What-
ever her religion may have been, she was its ap-
pointed High Priestess; as to that, at least, there
could be no misunderstanding ; and at the time ap-
pointed, her sovereignty would be proclaimed to the
world. She lived in constant expectation of the
" pestilence, wars, and other calamities " that were
to herald its coming and pave the way to her kingdom.
The plague came — came actually to herself; war broke
out in the Lebanon, bringing with it a whole train
of calamities, and still she hoped and waited — waited
on patiently, year after year, in sickness and poverty,
for an ever-receding phantom — the day of glory and
triumph that was never to be hers. Her errors and
her presumption may have been great, but it cannot,
I think, be denied that the picture is a pitiable and
pathetic one.

I met with an account of her of about this date in
the Memoirs of a Babylonian Princess, published in
1844. This so-called princess — a native of Bagdad —
was an inmate of the Emir Beshyr's harem, and went

1816-1823] LADY HESTER AS ASTROLOGER 213

to visit a venerable Druse, whom she found enter-
taining another guest.1

" Reclining by his side with crossed legs, a
lOrientale, smoking a narghileh, was a tall and
splendid figure, dressed in a long saffron coloured
robe with red stripes, with an embroidered sadrieh
fastened at the throat with a gold aigrette, whose
appearance, though somewhat wan, was dignified and
majestic. Although attired as a man, I at once dis-
covered that it belonged to the other sex. Her right
hand grasped her pipe, in the left she held a long
rosary of amber, the beads of which she let fall, one
by one, in slow succession.

" On my entrance, the venerable Akal and the lady,
whom I now perceived to be of extraordinary stature,
rose to receive me, and after the usual compliments,
I was invited to seat myself by their side. I per-
ceived that the lady was scanning me from head to
foot with a look of intense scrutiny. She then ad-
dressed me, with great courtesy and benevolence of
manner, in Arabic, which she spoke with great fluency,
although I thought from her accent, as well as from
her features and complexion, that she was not a
native of the East. 'You,' said she, 'are from the
land of the wise. It was in Chaldaea that science
first dawned ; it was there that astronomy, astrology,
and magic attained their highest perfection.' She
then asked me if I was skilled in astrology. I replied
that my father, being no great believer in the science,
had discouraged my studying it. This appeared to
cause her disappointment. ' I have devoted,' said
she, ' much time to the study of the stars, and, I trust,
not without profit. For instance, on looking atten-

1 I have abbreviated her prolix narrative.

214 FATALISM [CH. v

lively at your countenance, whilst you were engaged
in conversation with my venerable friend, I, without
difficulty, made out the star under which your birth
took place. It is sufficient for me to look attentively
at the eyes and forehead of any person to tell with
certainty the star of his nativity, and yours is the
Nejmal-el-A tared' " (Mercury). " ' That is quite true,'
said I. ' An astrologer in Chaldaea told me the same
thing, and also the great astrologer in Damascus,
called Suleiman the Hakim.'

" ' I know him well,' said she, her countenance
lighting up at finding her divination confirmed, ' and
there lives not a man more deeply skilled in the
divine art. We are all born under some of the
celestial bodies, and our destiny is settled in this
world by the benignant or malignant character of
our star. This is our fate, and it is idle and useless
to struggle against its resistless power. Whence
comes it that man conceives a mortal antipathy to
his fellow-man at first sight ? Because they were
born under stars having opposing influences. The
man born under the influence of the lamb will feel
an insupportable repugnance and dread when brought
in contact with one born under the sign of the tiger,
and will seek to avoid him. This is the decree of
fate.'

" After some further conversation on astrology, I
began to speak of my project of paying a visit to
Europe, and the delight I anticipated on there be-
holding the Christian virtues displayed in all their
purity and splendour. At this the lady laughed
outright, and clapping her hands after the Eastern
fashion, said, 'You have been greatly imposed upon
by some designing person. Europe, it is true, was
once the home of Christianity and the school of

1816-1823] DEGENERATE EUROPE 215

Christian virtue, but that is now as a tale that is
told — a thing of the past. The sun of Europe is set,
and in the hearts of her degenerate sons there re-
mains not so much as a spark of the virtues of their
forefathers. Piety and learning have been replaced
by low cunning and intrigue, by self-seeking and
hypocrisy. You will see nothing but degeneracy and
corruption. Stay where you are, and you will at
least see religion, untainted with schemes of self-
interest or aggrandizement. I was both born and
bred in Europe ; I have travelled much, and mixed
in the society of most of the European communities,
and I solemnly assure you, you will bitterly regret
the day you quitted these peaceful mountains for
the strife and turmoil of society in the West.'

" A Druse scheik formed one of our party, who
pretended he could divine the hiding-place of treasure
concealed in the earth, and said he knew, at that very
moment, of a hoard buried on the shore, near the
place where, according to tradition, Jonas was cast
ashore by the whale. I asked him how it came to
pass that he had not turned this knowledge to his
own advantage ?

" ' The reason is plain,' said he, ' for it is well
known that if the magician once turns his art to
further his own ends, and increase his wealth, his
power straightway leaves him, never to return.'

"This, I thought, looked very like a poor subter-
fuge to avoid being put to the proof. But the lady,
who, I discovered, was also a firm believer in the
magic art, said that the scheik was right, and that
the magician was forbidden to use his arts for his
own benefit.

" Soon afterwards she rose, and bidding us farewell,
took her departure, attended by a large retinue. A

216 LADY HESTER'S HORSEMANSHIP [CH. v

spirited charger stood at the gate, champing his bit
with impatience. She put her foot in the stirrup,
and vaulting nimbly in the saddle, which she, after
the Oriental fashion, bestrode like a man, started off
at a rapid pace, galloping over rock and mountain
in advance of her suite with a fearlessness and
address which would have done honour to a Mame-
luke.

" I was extremely curious to know the name of this
eccentric lady, and put the question to my host.
'That,' said he, 'is Lady Hester Stanhope.'"

After this first introduction they met pretty often.
"The Queen of Tadmor," as Lady Hester was com-
monly called by the Bedouin tribes, was on most
friendly terms with the Emir Beshyr, and a constant
visitor to his garden. In one part of this garden was
a paddock, in which were kept the kehaitani, or horses
of noble blood, whose genealogies, preserved with
religious care, were said to extend in an unbroken
line to the parent stock in the stables of King
Solomon.

" Lady Hester, who was one of the boldest horse-
women I ever saw, so much so as to excite the highest
admiration of the Arabs, themselves the best horse-
men in the world — often riding fearlessly along ridges,
and the steep and rocky sides of mountains, where
every step seemed to threaten destruction — frequently
spent hours, smoking her narghileh, and admiring
these beautiful steeds, which, to the number of fifty
or more, stood, their forelegs chained to a spike
driven into the ground, grazing before her.

" Among them was a bay mare of extraordinary
beauty, which the Emir Beshyr had purchased from
a sheick for a large sum — forty purses, as near as I
remember. Seeing that Lady Hester had taken a

1816-1823] THE "HORSE BORN SADDLED" 217

particular fancy to this mare, the Emir made her a
present of her, sending at the same time the sanad,
or certificate of her descent on both sides, from a
noble race, having all the qualities of the mares
spoken of by the Prophet, whose 'teats shall be
treasures, "and their backs thrones of honour.'

"With her he sent a beautiful she ass" (Lady
Hester sometimes drank ass's milk), " said to be a
lineal descendant of the ass on which our Saviour
rode on His entry to Jerusalem. (! !)

"Some months afterwards, Lady Hester sent a
messenger to inform us that the mare had given birth
to a foal of great beauty, having on its back a remark-
able excrescence, that formed a complete natural saddle
of the Turkish form. There is a tradition in the East
that at the Messiah's second coming He will come
riding on a horse having a natural saddle on his back.'*

Lady Hester announced this accordingly as a
miracle, and declared "she would reserve the foal
for the use of the Regenerator, whose coming she
awaited, whereat the Emir, who by no means sym-
pathised with this delusion, laughed outright." l

The " horse born saddled " had now come into the
world; but where was the "boy without a father"?
He failed to put in an appearance, though Lady
Hester expected him long and anxiously, and looked,
it is said, for the coming of the Duke of Reichstadt !
The " woman from a far country " announced herself
in 1835. (See p. 314.)

Lady Hester had now broken off all intercourse
with her own country. One after the other, she
dropped her English correspondents, till at last she
had ceased to write even to her favourite brother.
The following letters are addressed to Viscount
Strangford, our Ambassador at Constantinople, who
was a stranger to her. She was then, for some
reason or other, at daggers drawn with the English

1 No dates are given ; but from internal evidence this must have
been in 1820-22.

2i8 A BLOOD-FEUD [CH. v

Consul at Beyrout ; and it is characteristic that she
points out to Lord Strangford a gentleman whom
she considers far better fitted for the post. I may
add that this hostility was, like a blood-feud, carried
on to his successor, and seemed, in fact, to cling to
every one who held the appointment.

Lady Hester to Lord Strangford

" MOUNT LEBANON,

"March i2tA, 1823.

" MY LORD, — Your Lordship will undoubtedly hear
of the violent disputes which have taken place at
Beyrout between the Consuls. It is not my intention
to state facts which I have an imperfect knowledge
of, or to give my opinion upon them, but I beg your
Lordship's permission to speak candidly upon the
character of the persons concerned. . . . Since my
residence in Syria I have ever avoided interfering
with the intrigues of Consuls of any nation, and have
never employed any of them to transact business for
me further than, if by chance a box or letter has been
directed to their care, they have simply forwarded it
and received a receipt. I have avoided the society
of all the Consuls on the coast. ... It often happens
that those who pass their papers through Mr. Abbott's
office (because of the flag they bear) have orders to
consign their merchandise to Mr. Laurello. This has
created a most violent jealousy on the part of the other
Consuls and agents, and particularly in Mr. Abbott,
in whose character it would be difficult to find one
good point, except his attachment to Sir S. Smith.
I consider Mr. Abbott and Yakoub Aga, the new
Consul of Sayda (a disgraced Armenian Bishop), men
of such disgraceful characters, that I fairly state to
your Lordship that no situation, however disagreeable,
I might be placed in in this country by unforeseen
events, could oblige me to have any communication

1816-1823] JOHN BULL 219

with these sort of men. Mr. Aubin, who has been
turned out of the French Agency, not knowing how
to gain his bread or how to employ his time, dedicates
it to intrigue ; and old Youssif Massad always takes
the side which he thinks most to his advantage at the
present moment. What I have said of these persons
to your Lordship I am perfectly ready to say to their
face, and a great deal more. My candour I hope will
not have displeased you, as it has ever been my
custom to use strong language, that I might not be
misunderstood, without meaning the least disrespect
towards the person addressed. Far be it from me to
dictate to your Lordship, but I think I may feel assured,
that were you fully aware of the state of the country
and of existing circumstances, you would deem it proper
to send a man like Mr. Hamilton, whose personal
merit, as well as being known to enjoy your Lordship's
confidence, would ensure him respect. . . . When I
abuse Consuls, I must not forget to make an exception
in favour of Mr. Barker, who is a very good sort of
John Bull; it is well known, I believe, that I have no
particular admiration for those who bear that title, as
they in general partake of the heaviness of their
atmosphere. Mr. Barker possesses in a high degree
one of the necessary qualifications of a John Bull,
that is, considering the person of a king like that of
the Great Lama ; it is quite criminal to make any
distinction, or make any comparison between upstarts
and those who have reigned for centuries. Poor Mr.
Barker, however, has suffered very much from earth-
quakes, but has borne all his losses with cheerful
resignation, and has tried to persuade me by a letter
of eight pages that an earthquake is necessary to
human happiness, being ordained by Providence to
purify the air. I cannot agree with his philosophy

220 "ODDS AND ENDS" [CH. v

more than with his politics. There is only one point
upon which we ever have agreed for these ten years
past, and that was not finally settled till he paid a
visit to England four years ago, that the scanty dishes
upon an English board do not give one a distinct
idea of Roast Beef hospitality, and must be particu-
larly striking to persons used to be served in dishes
which in other countries might be mistaken for
washing tubs."

This letter is endorsed " Odds and Ends " by the
Ambassador, and was probably left unanswered, for
on February 7th, 1824, she resumes the subject with
fresh vehemence.

" About twenty years ago I saw Mr. Abbott when
he landed in England from a French prison, and when
he came to this country I showed him that degree of
civility which I thought etiquette towards an English-
man established on the coast required. He was the
bearer of a letter from Sir S. Smith — a rhapsody of
nonsense, which I did not choose to answer. I told
Mr. Abbott, in my first interview with him, that I
desired he would not communicate any of his plans
to me (which he had expressed a wish to do), as I
would neither give him opinion or advice upon any
subject except that which concerned his household
affairs, and when established at Beyrout, there I left
him; but when he chose to give English protection
to Yakoub Aga, a murderer and a thief, and to set
him up Consul at Sayda, the most infamous woman
in the country married to him by one of Mr. Abbott's
clerks, his first wife still living, I acquainted Mr.
Abbott verbally, by Michel Tolungi, that I wished him
to abstain from any further intercourse with me, and
that if any letters or boxes by accident fell into his

1816-1823] BASTINADO 221

hands, he would immediately deliver them over to
Mr. Laurello at Beyrout, who has been my agent at
that place for some years. Yakoub Aga expressed
an intention to pay me a visit, and his wife expressed
her intention to run away from her husband, to whom
she had been given by force by Mr. Abbott (with the
assistance of Turkish soldiers), and to seek protection
under my roof. These two proposals I peremptorily
refused, and declared I would not have the smallest
connection with them, and that if they troubled me with
any other messages I would bastinado the bearer ', which
I did. . . . Whatever Mr. Abbott's powers may be, I
shall resist them by force, nor shall any human force
connect me with persons whose superiors in merit
are to be found in Newgate. I am a stranger to your
Lordship, but you may learn from those that know
me that no power on earth can make me change a
determination I have once made. When murder,
theft, and falsehood are no longer crimes in the eyes
of a Supreme Being, I may then, but not till then,
speak more mildly of those that are their protectors.
I never had any love for intrigue ; intrigue is the
arms of the weak. I have no wish to meddle with
Mr. Abbott or any other Consul, but I shall ever
assert that they have no right to interfere with me,
without I call upon them so to do; and I should be
obliged to your Lordship to convey to me the know-
ledge of what person or persons I am to address to,
to prevent Mr. Abbott and his colleagues interfering
with me or my .affairs during my life or after my
demise. I am not a person likely to leave any money
behind me, and whatever personal property I may
possess in this country I have already bequeathed to
Miss Williams ; and whatever provision my stores
may contain at the time of my death may serve to feed

222 "MISERABLE REPTILES" [CH. v

the orphans in my house, and the blind and lame,
which I protect, as long as they will last. These
persons are subjects of the Sultan, and Mr. Abbott
has nothing to do with them. . . . You must not fancy
me, my Lord, in a fit of low spirits, on the contrary ;
but as my death has lately been forestalled, both at
Beyrout and at Sayda, in an indirect way, and the
vengeance that shall be hurled upon my servants, I
think it right to think of the poor creatures I may
leave behind me ; of this foresight your Lordship can
surely not disapprove, but as long as I have breath
they have nothing to fear. My Lord, I might bow
my head to an axe wielded by the hand of a manly
tyrant, whose great qualities, from excess, had in the
end become vices ; but as for a set of miserable
reptiles, I shall ever set them at defiance, whatever
risk I may run. ... If I have not the right to choose
my own religion, I have again sinned by not allowing
a set of missionaries to use my name in this country
in the promulgation of a sort of bastard religion, which
meets with the approbation of no religious sect what-
ever. The imputation of vanity can only be attached
to worldly concerns, therefore I trust your Lordship
will not accuse me of this foible if I simply repeat the
opinion given by the wisest men of the East, and some
of them the most profound metaphysicians I have ever
met with, ' that if I was capable of reading and calcu-
lating in Oriental languages, I should exceed any of
them in knowledge upon sublime subjects.' It is
quite ludicrous that a set of pettifogging missionaries
should come here to open the eyes of people whose
shoes they are not worthy to untie, and before whom
even one of the best French philosophers would
appear like a quack doctor ; but it is needless for me
to reason any more upon this subject, as the Pope1

1816-1823] MISHMOUSHY 223

has ordered all their Bibles to be burnt. God willing,
like Horace, I shall trim my vines, and contemplate
the beauties of Nature in this solitary spot, until the
veil of ignorance is withdrawn from the eyes of all
judging men ; but I will not allow anybody to inter-
fere with me, and I hope your Lordship will not
allow it either.1'

Enclosed is a very angry note from Mr. Abbott in
answer to a peremptory order she had sent him " in
a sort of French," declaring that " his public duties
are too well defined to need any comment " from her ;
that " he is not conscious of eyer having entertained
a wish to meddle with her affairs," and that it would
be very desirable that she should be equally scrupulous
in regard to his.

Lady Hester to Lord Strangford

" MISHMOUSHY

(a small hamlet on the top of Lebanon),
" October tfh, 1823.

" That I should have received a letter from your
Lordship, full of every honourable and good feeling,
and not be able to answer it in my own handwriting,
is truly mortifying to me. My health has been very
indifferent for more than a year past, and 1 am now
confined by illness to my bed, at a small hamlet on
the top of Lebanon, which I fled to, to get rid of the
intense heat, which this year has been intolerable
towards the foot of the mountain.

" Your Lordship will pardon me if I am rather
prolix in my account of the business in question. . . .

" Immediately after the Pacha had received his
pardon,1 arrived a horseman with a letter for me, and,
although I cannot read Arabic, I instantly recognised
the Pacha's own handwriting, and, therefore, that it

1 This was Abdalla, Pacha of Acre, whose head the Sultan had
twice demanded for treason and perfidy. He was pardoned through
'.he intercession of the Emir Beshyr, on paying a fine of 3,000 purses.

224 THE PACHA OF ACRE [CH. v

must be something of particular consequence. I had
no person about me whom I could trust with the
reading of this letter. I sent for an Effendi, a par-
ticular friend of mine ; he is a man of integrity, and a
man of the world, for he served in his youth some
of the greatest Pachas in Syria. I gave him the letter.
1 perceived he changed colour twenty times. He said,
1 This is a beautifully-written letter, a statement of the
Pacha's sufferings, of the Sultan's mercy towards him,
and of his fervent wish to exactly fulfil all that had
been promised for him ; he therefore requests of your
friendship to send him a bill of exchange for one
hundred purses.' I answered, ' 1 have not one
farthing at Constantinople. I have closed my account
with Mr. Sarell ; it is my future intention to draw
money by the way of Malta, and I have written to
England to that effect ; therefore, what can I do ? '
The Effendi replied, ' I do not wish to influence you,
but have I the permission to tell you the truth ? ' I
said, ' Certainly.' He said, ' Whatever you may say,
I know it will only be considered an excuse, and you
know best whether, under these extraordinary cir-
cumstances (as it is the price of his blood which he is
bound to pay), you like it to be considered that you
gave a positive refusal.' I reflected that this probably
came from his wife, the only surviving child of my
old friend Soliman Pacha. Could I appear unfeeling
to the darling of my dear old friend ? . . . I then
began to consider what was to be done. ... As the
Pacha promised in his letter to repay me in thirty-one
days, it was my intention to send off the money, and
trust to Mr. Sarell's liberality to make up the
difference of the exchange between here and Con-
stantinople, until I could repay him. Contented in
my own mind with this arrangement, and believing

1816-1823] MISHMOUSHY 225

that I had done right in relieving the mind of that
poor woman (as far as my little exertions could avail),
who had gone through more unhappiness than it is
possible to express, I sent off the Effendi to Acre to
explain to the Pacha how I was situated, but having
a sincere wish to serve him, I sent him a bill of
exchange for sixty purses, more I could not send,
relying upon Mr. Sarell's liberality with your Lord-
ship's intercession."

It seems, however, that Mr. Sarell did not

" Behave like a gentleman. Now, my Lord," she
continues, "have I done right or wrong? Which-
ever I may have done, I have acted from the impulse
of my nature, for the point of a sword resting on
my heart would chill it much less than a cold face
in misfortune. God knows I have seen too much of
apathy in my progress through life. Day after day
have I expected the Pacha to pay me the money,
which he has not done, owing to the bad state of his
finances, and hourly have I expected the letter of
credit upon Malta ; but I have reason to believe that
my letter on this subject has been lost. . . . The only
concern I now feel in the business is the trouble I
have occasioned your Lordship ; but had I not caused
you this trouble, I should have been ignorant of the
extent of the liberality of your nature and the kindness
of your disposition, which have made a lasting im-
pression on my mind. . . . Should your Lordship
honour me with another letter, I hope you will have
the goodness to direct it to the care of the Chevalier
Laurello, Austrian Consul, who is my agent at
Beyrout, for I cannot have any communication with
Mr. Abbott, whom I consider as one of the most
impudent, bombast, lying, unclean-handed fellows
16

226 DR. WOLFF [CH. T

that can be. It is a very good thing for him that I
am not the Ambassador, for I should flog him within
an inch of his life, if it should turn out that by his lies
he had drawn from me a letter which, under the
supposed circumstances, might be made use of to
my disadvantage. I know the Turks very well ; they
are very fins. The Government wish to see how
many more lies he will tell, and when the budget of
lies is finished, your Lordship will then hear the truth
from them. I never have made the smallest shuffle
with the Turks, either good or bad, and therefore
have never had any trouble with them. When the
country was all in confusion, I shared the fate of
everybody else in being very uncomfortable ; but it
arose more from general circumstances than from
any personal conduct.

" Before I conclude, I must beg leave to renew my
thanks to your Lordship, and my excuses for the
trouble I have caused you."

One of the missionaries she attacks must have been
the converted Jew, Dr. Wolff, with whom she had a
fierce passage of arms. Here is his own account of it :

" In the year 1823 I travelled with Captain the Hon.
John Caradoc, now Lord Howden, from Jerusalem to
Sayda, from which latter place, as being near to Lady
Hester's residence, I forwarded to Miss Williams a
letter from her sister, Mrs. David, which had been
entrusted to me by that lady, and to which I added a
note from myself, saying that I should be happy to
forward her answer to her sister at Malta. One hour
after, a letter arrived from Lady Hester herself, the
contents of which were as follows :

" ' I am astonished that an apostate should dare to
thrust himself into notice in my family. Had you

1816-1823] MISHMOUSHY 227

been a learned Jew, you never would have abandoned
a religion, rich in itself, although defective, to embrace
the shadow of one. Light travels faster than sound ;
therefore the Supreme Being could never have allowed
His creatures to be left in utter darkness, until paid
and speculating wanderers deem it proper to raise
their venal voice to enlighten them.

" ' HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.' "

Dr. Wolff to Lady Hester

" SAIDA,

"June, 1823.

11 MADAM, — I have just received a letter which bears
your signature, but I doubt its being genuine, as I
never wrote to your Ladyship, nor did I mention your
name in my letter to Miss Williams.

" With regard to my views and pursuits, they give
me perfect tranquillity and happiness, and they must
be quite immaterial to your Ladyship.

" Your humble servant,

"JOSEPH WOLFF."

The messenger declared that " the King of England's
daughter had ordered him to be bastinadoed and kicked
downstairs. There were no stairs at Djoun, but she
may have had the man chastised. She had, 1 fear,
adopted Eastern methods as well as Eastern habits.

CHAPTER VI

DJOUN— CAPTAIN YORKE, R.N. — DR. MERYON
1823—1830

I HAVE given these letters consecutively, without a
strict attention to dates ; for, correctly speaking, the
following one to Dr. Meryon should have preceded the
three last.

It appears that, the year before, the doctor had
offered to come back and resume his attendance upon
her. He was now married, and had been endeavouring
to establish a practice in London, in which he had not
succeeded. It was urgent that he should obtain some
employment, and in his difficulty he turned his
thoughts to Djoun. Lady Hester, though she was,
as she writes, " surprised at his offer, so often re-
peated," was glad to accept it. Unfortunately,
communication with Syria was a very slow process;
letters were months on the road ; and while he was
waiting to hear when she expected him, he received
an eligible offer from a gentleman in England, which
he unhesitatingly accepted. Consequently, when Lady
Hester's letter arrived, directing him when to start, he
was " placed in the painful dilemma" (I am quoting his
own words) " of being obliged to apologize to her for
not being able at that time to join her." She was
naturally indignant at this breach of faith.

Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon

"July 30//4, 1823.

" I shall not either scold or reproach you ; I only
hope that the line you have taken will turn out in the
end to your advantage. I confess I am sorry and
mortified that, after having rendered me several

228

1823-1830] DJOUN 229

services, you are still in a situation so little inde-
pendent. Were I inclined to be angry, it would be
with . . .,* for, had he been like the chevaliers of former
times, he would have said, ' Doctor, however it may
be inconvenient for me to part with you at present, I
so much respect your motives, and so much admire
your fidelity, that so far from opposing, allow me to
promote your views ; and I beg you will accept of
this purse for your little wants. When you have
finished with it, I trust you will consider me as your
next friend ; and I flatter myself I may expect from
you the same proofs of attachment.' But the world
is spoilt ; no good feeling exists ; all is egotism. . . .
I have no right to demand permanent sacrifices of
you or others. The time will come when you will
see with deep regret whether or not I have taken
into consideration your interests, as well as my own
personal convenience. I was surprised at your offer,
so often repeated, and less surprised at your conduct,
as a doubt often had occurred to my own mind, if
temptations of any kind happened to be thrown in
your way, whether or not you would have strength
of mind to refuse present advantage and comfort. You
have acted as you judged best, and as you thought
circumstances authorized you to do ; but you never
can persuade me that General Grenville, the soul of
honour and feeling, could ever have recommended a
man to break his word. Had you simply asked him,
before you had made up your mind, ' Shall I keep my
word and go, or accept of these offers ? Give me, I do
entreat, your candid opinion,' I know what it would
have been. But, having decided, what would you have

1 The gentleman for whom he had thrown her over. The doctor,
" in justice to this honourable individual," explains that he knew
nothing of the pre-engagement to Lady Hester. Had he done so, he
could scarcely have made his offer.

230 "A HEAVEN-BORN SAGE" [CH. vi

him say? — that I should be angry ? No ; he knew me
too well not to be aware that no sacrifice, which I did
not believe to be a voluntary one, could have any
value in my estimation.

" I cannot explain my feelings without seeming to
praise myself. I make one rule for my own line of
conduct, and one for that of others, and have two
separate judgments ; I mean, one regulated by truth
and feeling, and one after the fashion of what is
thought right in the world. I never judge myself
and those I really love by the latter. I wish them
to be pure and high-minded, and to have confidence
in God's mercy, if they act from true principle. But
you worldly slaves of bon ton must not be tried by
such a test. Mr. Murray was right — ' She will not be
angry,' — no, because she thinks you all children ; I
mean, the gay world, of which you now make a part.

" I need not have said all this, but it is a hint as to
the future, when the folly and uselessness of modern
ideas and calculations will be at an end. I have been
thought mad — ridiculed and abused ; but it is out of
the power of man to change my way of thinking upon
any subject. Without a true faith, there can be no
true system of action. All the learned of the East
pronounce me to be an Ulema min Allah" (a heaven-born
sage), " as I can neither write nor read " (Arabic) ;
" but my reasoning is profound, according to the laws
of Nature.

" I shall say nothing of this part of the world, where
I had lately announced your speedy arrival to my
particular friends and to my family.1 Your interest
about matters here must now be at an end, and. it
fatigues me so to write, that, without it is a case of
absolute necessity, I must give it up. I have no
1 The Arab tribe to which she was affiliated.

1823-1830] DJOUN 231

assistance. My two dragomans are low-minded,
curious, vulgar men, in whom I can put no confidence.
In short, they can only be called very bad, idle
servants, having no one property of a gentleman
belonging to them.

" James's loss l— the General's death— all has afflicted
me beyond description. I heard of James's affliction
six months after. To write — not to write — no proper
conveyance — what to say— after a year, perhaps, to
open the wounds of his heart without being able to
pour in one drop of the balm of consolation ! What I
say would be vain. He considers me as a sort of poor
mad woman, who has once loved him, therefore he is
kind to me ; but as to my opinion having weight — no !
To be considered as a sort of object is not flattering ;
but so let it be. There is no remedy for it, or other
evils, except in the hand of God, which, if He will
stretch forward to save me, all may vanish ; if not, I
shall vanish, for I am quite worn out. . . . Remember,
I shall give no opinion about you to any one ; there-
fore, do not fancy, if you see a change in persons'
conduct, it comes from me. The world and fashionable
loungers take up new favourites every day, and discard
the old ones without reason. All are not General
Grenvilles. No one so likely to be mortified at this
as you.

" Why do you not talk to me of James's poor little
children ? and why not have asked to see them ?
Have you forgotten how all about him interests me ? "

The next year (1824) brought poor Lady Hester the
only remaining gleam of good fortune that was hence-
forward to fall to her lot. She found a friend — her

1 James Stanhope had married in 1820 Lady Frederica Murray,
daughter of the Earl of Mansfield, who died after the birth of her
second child in 1823.

232 CAPTAIN YORKE, R.N. [CH. vi

last friend, and one of the best and truest she ever
had.

In November, Captain Yorke (afterwards Earl of
Hardwicke), who was cruising in the Levant in the
Alacrity, cast anchor at Sayda, and sent to know if he
could be of any service to her. She had now got out
of the habit of receiving visitors, and admitted very
few — Englishmen least of all, but she had known
some of the Yorkes in old times, and sent him the
following note :

" If Captain Yorke can leave his ship for a day,
Lady Hester Stanhope will be happy to see him at her
house at Djoun, and has ordered her dragoman at
Seyd, Michael, to wait to accompany Captain Yorke.
As the roads in this part of the country are very bad,
Lady Hester has sent a mule down, which Captain
Yorke may perhaps prefer to a horse."

Captain Yorke accordingly came to Djoun, and
wrote to his father this account of his visit :

" DJOUN,

" Sunday Night, November 2%tk.

" After leaving Beyrout, we next let go the anchor
at Seida (Sidon), once so famed, and now a very
tolerable Turkish town. . . . Here my attention was
agreeably deviated from examining much of the town
and its contents by the circumstance of my despatch-
ing a civil line, with Captain Y.'s compliments, to
Lady Hester Stanhope, offering my services in any
way, to take letters, &c., to Malta, or elsewhere that
I might be going. Lady Hester for some years has
refused to see English people, therefore I had not a
hope that she would give me an interview, and in
my note I never hinted at it, but to my surprise, on
the evening of my anchoring, her Armenian inter-
preter came on board with a kind note, by which I
found that a horse and escort were at Seida, waiting

1823-1830] LADY HESTER'S HOUSE 233

to conduct me, when I might please, to Djoun, her
residence in Libanus, about three hours from Seida.
Accordingly, on the following morning, with Luca,
my Armenian interpreter, in company, we started for
the residence of her Ladyship. The ride, uninterest-
ing from any circumstance but that of actually being
on Mount Lebanon, deserves no remark — sterile, and
but little cultivated in this part. Her residence is
on an eminence, about ten miles from the sea, which
it overlooks ; on the other side, it does not look into
the bosom of the valley of Bishra, yet it is high
enough to enjoy the beautiful verdure of the moun-
tains rising on the opposite side, whose tops are the
most lofty of Libanus. The air is pure, the scenery
bold. On a hill, about a mile to the southward of
her habitation, is a village which flourishes in the
sunshine of her favour and protection. Her house
is a neat building, a mixture of Oriental and English.
From the entrance-gate a passage (on either side of
which is a guard-room, and some apartments for
soldiers and servants) (leads?) to a square yard,
halfway across which is a terrace with three steps,
round which terrace are the different apartments of
servants, interpreters, as also spare rooms for visitors;
on the left side of the terrace, under a lattice-work
of wood, woven with roses and jasmine, I was ushered,
and shown into a small apartment furnished in the
Eastern style. The Chibouque and coffee were in-
stantly brought by a French youth in the costume
of a Mameluke, with compliments from Milady,
begging I would refresh myself after my fatigue.
On my ablutions being finished, I was sent for.
Passing through several passages, I was shown into
a room, rather dark, with a curtain drawn across,
which on being a little withdrawn, I found myself in

234 LADY HESTER AT DJOUN [CH. vi

the presence of a Bedouin Arab chief, who soon
turned out to be Lady Hester. She expressed great
joy at seeing the son of one of the most honest
families in England ; so she was pleased to express
herself. She received me as an English lady of fashion
would have done. I at once became delighted with
her wit, her knowledge, and, I must say, her beauty,
for she is still one of the finest specimens of a woman
I ever saw. She spoke much of Uncle Charles. Her
conversation animated beyond any person I ever met ;
she was in great spirits ; her dress, which well became
her gigantic person, very rich. I shall pass over our
conversation, which was full of histories of marvels
and wonders, manners and customs of the people,
plague, pestilence and famine, &c., &c. I went back
to the brig the following day, and returned in the
afternoon to Djoun, taking with me Mr. Forrester, my
surgeon, who she requested I would allow to arrange
her medicines, which were in confusion and disorder.
" In the evening she sent for me ; she smoked the
Chibouque ; her mind was wrought to a high pitch of
enthusiasm ; she talked wildly, and was much dis-
tressed in mind ; in short, her intellects were much
disordered, and it was very distressing. However,
she arranged that I should next morning start for
Der-il-Kamman, the capital of the Druses, with a
letter to the Emir Beshir, the prince of that nation. I
perceive that were I to begin a description, I should
waste much good paper without stating anything
that is new. The Druses are a most extraordinary
people; the palace of the Emir superb; the country
richly cultivated by the greatest labour, being all in
ridges on the sides of the mountains ; but I shall
refer you to Mr. Hope's ' Anastasius ' for a good
description, and for all that is supposed, for nothing

1823-1830] CAPTAIN YORKE VISITS THE DRUSES 235

is known, of their religion. The Emir treated us with
much kindness, and I stayed two days in his palace,
where we had apartments ; visited him in the fore-
noon, after which he did not interfere with our
pleasure ; excellent living, about forty dishes served
to about four people for dinner. On a visit to the
Emir was the son of the Pacha of Damascus, who
offered me to accompany him back to that city,
where he said I should reside in the palace of his
father, and see all that was to be seen. Such an
offer almost tempted me to cut the Alacrity. I sup-
pose a Christian hardly ever had such an opportunity,
which he was obliged to lose. Lady Hester said it
was my ' hijim,' or star, that got me into such favour.
On the third morning we breakfasted at Der-il-
Kamman, the town, about one mile distant from
Petedeen (the palace), and returned to Djoun, arriving
late that night.

" She made me several presents, the most valuable
of which I sent home to your charge by Euryalus.
She has written to me once since.

" I wrote a letter to Lord Chatham about her. As
I know her family knew little or nothing about her, I
in a manner found myself called on.

" Much more I could write, but really just now my
attention is so much called off by continual callings
from Captain Hamilton, who sends for me on every
occasion, that this despatch will be curtailed ; but I
trust that more particulars will come viva voce."

Captain Yorke to Lord Chatham

"HM.S. Alacrity,

"February 25^, 1825.

" MY LORD,— I take the liberty of addressing you
on a subject of some interest to yourself ; and I trust

236 LADY HESTER'S PITIABLE STATE [CH. vi

in so doing I shall not be thought impertinent, as it
arises from the best intentions, and from a real feeling
of commiseration for her of whom I shall speak.

" It is a short time since I left the coast of Syria,
where I was most kindly invited to Djoun in Lebanon
by its possessor, Lady Hester Stanhope, your relation.
Particulars as to her mode of life you are well ac-
quainted with, no doubt ; so of that 1 shall not speak,
but of her distresses only, which, as far as I am
able to judge, are fast undermining her mind and
health. As she was open and frank to me, she made
me understand that absolute want of money was a
great source of uneasiness to her ; the house she now
lives in belonging to a Turk in Constantinople, who
threatens to turn her out when her lease was out,
which was three months when I saw her, if she does
not pay £500 for the entire purchase of the place. She
had not the money, she told me. Another source of
misery was the want of some good people about her,
a steady man-servant and a maid ; she begins much to
feel the want of these comforts, and I assure you they
are absolutely necessary for her. She is very forlorn,
and her mind has taken a very serious turn, much
impaired, and full of magic and divination. Nothing
will ever induce her to return to her native land ; in
fact, it is a dangerous experiment to try and persuade
her; but what would make her comfortable, and as
happy as she can be made in this world, would be to
purchase Djoun for her, and send such people as I
have described out to her.

" She never will herself make known to her family
her distress ; her mind is too high, and knowing what
I do, I felt it my duty to her, and to my fellow-
creature, to make it known to one of her family. You,
my Lord, I know, and you can make it known to her

1823-1830] A REAL FRIEND 237

brother James,1 of whom she never ceases to talk, and
for whom she retains the warmest affection. One
thing must be taken care of, she must not know this is
done, or perhaps she would take some extraordinary
measure, such as flying away nobody knows where.
She threatens this continually if they try to get her to
England.

" Her mind is so high, that, did she know I wrote
this, she would never bear to hear my name again.
" I remain, my Lord,

" Your ever obliged servant,

" C. YORKE.

" P.S. — I do sincerely hope some measures will be
taken to make her comfortable. She has not very long
to live, depend upon it. — C. Y."

Well might Lady Hester say of him (in writing to
Kinglake) : " He is the kindest-hearted man existing
— a most manly, firm character. He comes from a

food breed — all the Yorkes excellent, with ancient
rench blood in their veins." He was a real and
constant friend. To the day of her death he never
failed her ; whenever she was in trouble or difficulty
(and when was she not ?) he was always at hand,
ready to help, comfort, and advise her — even though
his advice was never followed. The last letter she
probably ever wrote was addressed to him.

The first— that mentioned in his letter to his father— is
as follows :

Lady Hester to Captain Yorke

" MOUNT LEBANON,

"Jan. m, 1825.

" DEAR CAPTAIN YORKE, — The mountain which you
so much admired is shortly likely to be a scene of
bloodshed. All the Druse population has risen against
the Emir Beshyr in favour of the Sheick Beshyr, who,

1 Considering the slow rate at which letters travelled in those days,
this appeal can never have reached her poor brother, who died only
a few weeks afterwards.

338 "RASCALS OF CONSULS" [CH. vi

they say, is supported by the Pacha of Damascus
against the Pacha of Acre. The troops of the latter
are encamped from the bridge all along the river, and
he is expected to arrive to-morrow to head them. You
may guess what my situation is, but depend upon it
that I shall never want courage, or forget the duty
I owe to my fellow-creatures. Thank God, my cough
has left me nearly ; I was very, very ill indeed after
your departure for about a fortnight. Michael has
been recalled by his family ; his mother is ill. Yousef
is at Cyprus, and my other Yousef not yet returned
from Alexandria. When you see my good friend Mr.
Werry, who has always been so civil to me, tell him
that 1 am prepared to act as he has always <}one for
this thirty years past. Don't be uneasy about me ;
all is written above. I am never out of humour with
events, only with those cursed rascals of Consuls,
who deserve to be knocked into the kennel; and
even if I was a man, I could not soil my sword with
anything so unclean. Remember me most kindly to
your uncle, and thank your doctor for the kind in-
terest he was so good as to take about my health.
A thousand thanks to yourself for the pearl barley.
As I am employed with fifty things at once, I have
dictated these few lines. It is said that another
revolution is expected in the Metouali country, which
is the range of mountains you saw above Sour, and
there is a road of communication between that moun-
tain and the mountains here, in the direction of that
high black mountain where I passed the summer.
This report is given credit to, as the Emir Beshyr
has ordered all the convents in that direction to
remove everything valuable ; it is supposed that these
people will join the mountaineers here. I have had
several civil messages from the camp from the Alba-

1823-1830] REVOLUTION 239

nians, Hawaras, Sugmars, Delatis, &c., but you know
that the officers cannot at times command troops,
great part of which are banditti, but all is written, as I
said before.

" P.S. (in her own writing). — I am in better spirits
than when you saw me, for the sight of you brought
to my recollection old times, and it was with difficulty
I could keep my ideas fixed upon what I was talking
about. I was oppressed in body and mind. Adieu.
"Yours most sincerely,

" HESTER LUCY STANHOPE."

This letter was sent through Dr. Meryon, probably
because Lady Hester was ignorant of Captain Yorke's
address in England ; and with it came the following
enclosure :

Extract.

"MOUNT LEBANON,

"January Wi, 1825.

" Although I have never interfered in any of the
political concerns of this country, and for many years
have avoided all social intercourse with great men,
the heads of parties, I could plainly see, by a sour
silent discontent, that the state of things was not much
to be relied upon.

" The revolution has now broken out, and the whole
mountain is in a flame. The Pacha's troops are en-
camped two hours from me, and he is expected to-
morrow. It is said he is in a violent passion. Whether
his intention of heading his own troops is only a threat
or his real intention I cannot pretend to say ; only
that preparations are made for his arrival. All the
villages about me are deserted except one, which
remains trembling between the troops on one side
and the mountaineers on the other; but they say
every place at Sayda is so full that they know not

240 BARBAROUS REPRISALS [CH. vi

where to go to ; even the convents have been cleared of
everything valuable, and the priests are ready to fly.
My situation is not a very agreeable one — not that I
fear danger (for I do not know what fear means), but
from the great number of miserable people who have
announced their intention of taking refuge here if
they are driven from the asylum they have chosen,
presents me with the prospect of starvation if this
business last long, for these poor people are destitute
of everything. Here are two lines to Captain Yorke,
which you will be so good as to forward. Copy like-
wise what I say here.

11 H. L. S."

This revolt, in which the Sheick Besh^r was joined
by a brother of the Emir Beshyr's and three of his
sons, might, according to Lamartine, have been
successful, but for the interposition of the Pacha of
Acre (the same Abdalla whose blood-fine Lady Hester
had helped to pay). He owed his life to the Prince of
the Mountain, and, mindful of his debt, now came to
help him to victory. The Sheick was utterly routed,
and took to flight, but was pursued and overtaken in
the plains of Damascus. He had an escort of two
hundred men, and might, it is said, easily have made
good his escape, had not a Turkish officer, who was
present, assured him that the Prince of the Mountain
had pardoned him. On the faith of this assurance, he
surrendered ; but was instantly seized, carried off to
Damascus, stripped, bound, and thrown into prison.
There he remained for some months, till his death-
sentence had been pronounced by the Porte ; he was
then strangled, beheaded, and his body cut up into
bits and thrown to the dogs. The three young
princes were also captured, and the Emir wreaked a
terrible vengeance on his unfortunate nephews. He
burnt out their eyes, cut out their tongues, and sent
them out of the country. The Sheick's wife had fled
with her young son ; but he sent after her, had her
brought back, and demanded of her the little boy, say ing,
" Let me see him cut to pieces before my eyes." Yet

1823-1830] DEATH OF COL. JAMES STANHOPE 241

this treacherous barbarian was the same Prince of the
Mountain who was Lady Hester's near neighbour,
and had been her friend, with whom she had spent a
month at her first coming to the country, and
described as a "mild, amiable man!" (seep. 126).
She was now horror-struck at these atrocities (besides
others too shocking for me to repeat) and openly
denounced him, even to his own people, as " a dog
and a monster." He became her bitterest enemy, and
his close vicinity a perpetual menace and trouble to
the household at Djoun.

Lady Hester was now to experience the last and
crowning sorrow of her life. Two months after she
wrote to Captain Yorke, on March 25th, 1825, she lost
the brother she had so dearly loved. There is no one
to tell us when she received, nor how she bore the
news of this calamity ; no one was near to help and
care for her, but her faithful old servant Elizabeth.
Had it not been for her, she must have met and faced
her bereavement alone. We do not know whether
her courage failed, or her health broke down ; a pall
of silence, tragic and solemn, falls over the dark days
that followed. All we know is, that from this time
forth her whole mode of life was changed. She was
never seen outside her garden wall again.

One grieves most for those whose sorrow is
desolate ; whose cry of distress reaches no loving
ear ; whose hand is stretched out for a kindred hand
in vain. Lady Hester was truly forlorn in her
affliction, thousands of miles away from all that
belonged to her, in a strange and far-distant land.
Yet, even then, her heart did not turn homewards.
Even then, a word of sympathy that came from
England was not welcome. Her only surviving
sister, Lady Griselda, hoping that she might now,
perhaps, break the long silence that had grown up
between them, wrote to her several times after poor
James's death. " I thought it would be consolatory
to her to hear something of his child and the rest of
the family. My letters were written in a kind and
conciliatory spirit, and did not enter into any family
disagreements, but she took no notice whatever of
them." She mentions this as the only communication
that passed between them for thirty years.

Colonel Stanhope had, five years before his death,

'7

242 USURIOUS INTEREST [CH. vi

inherited from his kinsman, Sir Joseph Banks,
Revesby Abbey and an estate in Lincolnshire, subject
to the life interest of Lady Banks. As she survived
him by three years, he never came into possession of
the property, but by his will he charged it with an
annuity of £1,500 a year to his sister Hester. This
more than doubled her income, but it was still far in
the future, to come to her only on Lady Banks'
death ; and in the meantime her present need was
pressing. She was in constant and terrible straits
lor money, hampered with debts, and with endless
demands upon her ; borrowing at usurious interest,
and losing heavily by the exchange. She gives a
deplorable account of her affairs to the doctor.

Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon

" As for my debts, it is not, as you think, 25 per cent,
yearly that I have to pay, but 50 and 95 ; and in one
instance I have suffered more loss still. Gold of 28^
piastres they counted to me here at 45, which I spent
at 28|, and am to repay at Beyrout at the rate of 45—
calculate that ! "

The turbulent times increased her difficulties.

" I must keep a great number of animals, because
there are none to hire as formerly, and these people,
as you know, will not walk two hundred yards, and
now that there is hardly any Government in the
mountain, they are worse than ever. ... In point of
wardrobe, I have made myself nearly naked. The
distress of people has been so great that I have given
everything away, except a few things that are too fine
for me or others to wear under present circumstances.
... I have no one person but Williams on whom I
can rely. At times I have twenty people, at other
times hardly any. They put their abba (cloak) upon
their shoulders, and set off in the middle of the night
for no reason whatever. Having got a little money

1823-1830] DUPED 243

and clothes, they prefer selling brandy at the camp,
or taking advantage of the state of the country to do
worse. I have led the life of a post-horse for two
years past. Williams got a hurt on her side in
moving a box. I would not allow her to stir
her arm for nearly three weeks, and I worked
like a slave. You are aware what the women are
here — nobody can work but slaves, and Williams
has not spirit enough to manage them. If ill, there
is not one capable of getting her a glass of water
without doing it myself; when well, her time is taken
up with store-room affairs and other bothers, and I
am left in the hands of a stupid, sulky girl of twelve.
... If I have any servants sent out I should wish them
to be chiefly Scotch — a steady Highlander with great
courage, a fine open-countenanced spirited little devil
of a Highland boy, and a sensible, middle-aged woman,
understanding nursing sick people, and making pre-
serves, &c. . . . What would become of poor Williams
if anything should happen to me ? What means will
she have of departing ? Whom can she confide in, poor
soul ? This thought pains meloften— more than I can
express."

In 1826 she was duped by a wretched impostor,
who came to Djoun on a pretended mission from the
Duke of Sussex, the Duke of Bedford, and " a com-
mittee of influential Freemasons," to inquire into her
affairs, pay her debts, and provide her with a suitable
income. How she could have credited so improbable
a story is unaccountable ; but hers was a sanguine
disposition, and all people are prone to believe what
they wish to be true. The man told her he had
travelled with the Duke of Bedford's son, and had
been " like a child of the family," and showed her a
present he had received from His Royal Highness,
that, " in case of accidents, was to be a passport
partout" with an official red box of papers as his
credentials from the " influential Committee." What

244 LADY HESTER'S DEBTS [CH. vi

his object can have been it is impossible to say,1 as
there was clearly no money obtainable ; but it was
a very cruel trick to play upon her. Poor Lady
Hester actually made out a list of the servants she
was so sorely in need of. She writes to the doctor
(who was then again preparing to join her, his
engagement with the " honourable individual " having
come to an end) :

Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon

" DjOUN,

""January 5//fc, 1827.

" I will not afflict you by drawing a picture of my
situation, or of the wretched scare-crow grief and
sickness have reduced me to, but I must tell you
that I am nearly blind, and this is probably the last
letter I shall be able to write to you ; indeed, no other
will be necessary. . . . Now, here are my orders and

ultimatum. If X 's story is true, and my debts,

amounting to £10,000, or nearly, are to be paid, then
I shall go on making sublime and philosophical dis-
coveries, and employing myself in deep, abstract
studies; although, as my strength is gone, I cannot
work day and night as I have done. In that case,
I shall want a mason, a carpenter, a ploughman, a
gardener, groom, doctor, &c., so that I must have
assistance. Income made out, £4,000 a year, and
£1,000 more for persons like you, that I should want ;
and £5,000 ready money for provisions, buildings,
animals, money in hand, &c., that I may start clear.

" In the second case, in the event that all that has
been told me is a lie, then let me be disowned publicly,
now and hereafter, and left to my fate and faith alone ;
for if I have not a right to what I want, I will have

1 The following extract from another letter may throw some light

on the subject. " Never did I tell X to ask for a place, or

recommend him, more than saying he had acted generously and
kindly by me, which I then believed."

: 1823-1830] REFUSAL OF ASSISTANCE 245

nothing. Nothing else will I hear, and grief has
departed from my soul since I have taken the follow-
ing resolution.

" I shall give up everything for life that I may now,
or hereafter, possess in Europe, to my creditors, and
throw myself as a beggar upon Asiatic humanity, and
wander far about without one para in my pocket,
with the mare from the stable of Solomon in one
hand, and a sheaf of the corn of Ben Israel in the
other. I shall meet death, or that which I believe
to be written, which no mortal hand can efface. . . .
You meant to do well, so I will not scold. But
why apply without leave to the ' Fat,' " ] (Duke of
Buckingham) " or the ' Thin,' " (Earl Stanhope) ?
" Or why talk to ... of my concerns ? What is ...
to me ? I know him well — a low-minded, chitter-
chattering fellow. But suppose him an angel, had
you my leave to consult or speak to him ? It is not
likely. But in the event of the ' Fat ' or the ' Thin's '
having placed any money in the hands of my bankers,
let them take it back again. . . . You have no ex-
planations to make, only that I decline it. Under no
circumstances, I repeat, will I owe anything to the
1 Fat,' to the ' Thin,' to Canning and his friends, or
have anything to do with ' Sir Vanity ' " (Sir Sidney
Smith). " I say this, because I have heard of new
plans of his. He may, perhaps, mean to come here —
if to-morrow, I shall shut the door in his face. If
any force, Consular force, is ever tried with me, I
shall use force in return, and appeal to the populace
to defend me. It is right this should be known. I
am no slave, and I disown all such authority. Never
will I be brought to England, except in chains, and

1 For some reason or other, Lady Hester, in her letters, always
substituted initials or cypher for proper names.

246 LADY HESTER ON PHYSIOGNOMY [CH vi.

never will I be made to act differently from that
which my will dictates, whilst there is breath in
my body; therefore, to attempt to oppose me is in
vain. . . . All situations have their blessings, with
the grace of God. It is uncertainty which is torture ;
but now my mind is made up. ... I have been very
ill of a terrible fever, and strong convulsions. . . . My
eyes are quite dim, and drawn into my head with
contraction, which sometimes pulls my head back —
quite back. I can hardly crawl ; but yet, poor monster
as I am, I shall get on, for my spirit and heart are
unchanged.
"Now for servants."

She required three men, "a storekeeper" (most
needed of all), " to lock up, weigh, measure,
and write down everything that comes in or goes
out " ; an old dragoon to look after the saises
(grooms), and a Scotch gardener ; a maid for herself,
" not a fine lady, but one who has been a nursery or
housemaid," and a housekeeper. She especially
enjoined the doctor not to neglect " the good and
bad marks" in their personal appearance, which, as
she firmly believed, indicated character and dis-
position.

" Wrinkles at the eyes are abominable, and about
the mouth. Eyebrows making one circle, if meeting,1
or close and straight, are equally bad. Those are
good meeting the line of the nose, as if a double
bridge. Eyes long, and wide between the eyebrows,
and no wrinkles about the forehead when they laugh,
or about the mouth, are signs of bad luck and
duplicity. Eyes all zigzag are full of lies. A low,
flat forehead is bad ; so are uneven eyes, one larger
than the other, or in constant motion. I must have

1 This is in accordance with the old saw :

Mistrust a man whose eye-brows meet,
For in his heart you'll find deceit.

1823-1830] WRINKLES AND CHARACTER 247

a fine, open face, all nature, with little education,
in a fine, straight, strong, healthy person, with a
sweet temper.

" Did you ever see a picture or painting of the
Lady William Russell, the Duke's brother's wife?
That sort of face was perfect for a woman. If the
eyebrows of a man are straight, and come nearly
together, that is nothing; but, if they form an arch,
it is always a sign of natural hum (melancholy) in the
character. Never can such a one be contented or
happy. Look at little Adams and General Taylor-
how sincere are their black eyebrows !

" Don't make a mistake— wrinkles of age are not the
wrinkles of youth, of which I am speaking. One line
is not called a wrinkle. The wrinkles I speak of are
found in children of seven years old, when they laugh
or cry."

These instructions were, of course, useless; no
servants could be hired, for no money was forth-
coming.

Meanwhile, the doctor was making a dilatory and,
as it proved, fruitless attempt to go to Djoun. On
January 23rd, he and his family crossed over to Calais,
where " the severity of the weather and the sale of
some landed property in England" detained him for
nearly four months, thence, progressing more rapidly,
he reached Pisa on June i4th, proposing to embark
for the East at Leghorn, but delayed his departure
till September ;th, when he sailed in the Italian
merchant brig Fortuna. When off Crete, they were
boarded and plundered by a Greek privateer ; and
the captain, who had been roughly handled, refused
to proceed on his voyage, and took them back to
Leghorn. Here they were detained in quarantine till
November i/th, when Dr. Meryon gave up all further
attempts to reach Syria till the spring, and went for
the winter to Rome. But when spring came, he once
more changed his mind, and finally returned to
England in June, 1828.

248 TURK AND FRANK AS CREDITORS [CH. vi

All this time poor Lady Hester was expecting him,
and preparing for his arrival.

Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon

" I cannot read what I have written. I was two
days making out your last letter. I had prepared a
little court, with two rooms and an open divan, for
you; but with Mrs. Meryon and the children it will
not do. I shall love her and the dear children much,
and all might be comfortable. God grant it so ! I
have a house in the village, which is good, and will
do very well — clean, with two rooms upstairs. . . .
Well, now I have said enough, and must make up my
mind to have, in a few days, an attack, from over-
straining my head and eyes ; but it is the last effort of
the nature I shall make. Adieu.

" P.S. — A dun, who came here two months ago — a
Christian — took a Turk into his room, after I had seen
and spoken to him, and said : ' I came to get my
money, but now I am ready to cry at her situation. It
is clear that these Franks are unprincipled and un-
feeling, that they have no religion, and know not God.
The proof is — and does there want a stronger ? — their
leaving such a wonderful person, as she really is, to
wither with sorrow.' Then he went out swearing, and
took his leave. These are the feelings now alive
among the Turkish population. As a contrast, mark
how Mr. ... an Englishman, acts. He told one of
my creditors to take my bond, put it in water, and,
when well sopped, to drink the mixture ; ' for that is
all,' he said, ' you will ever get for it.' Furious was
the creditor, and took himself off to a distance, but
will, in a few months, be back again to torment me."

The next letter is to Mr. John Webb, her banker at
Leghorn.

1823-1830] AN EMIR'S BOYCOTT 249

Lady Hester to Mr. John Webb

"DJOUN, MOUNT LEBANON,

"May so//;, 1827.

"A Firmanlee" (outlaw), "having taken refuge in
the Mountain, under the protection of the Emir
Beshyr, contrived to pick a quarrel with my water-
carrier, who was quietly going about his business, and
having bribed some of the Emir's Jack Ketches, they
beat him most unmercifully. The Emir Beshyr and
his chief people have likewise been bribed by this
man, who has plenty of money at his disposal. They
have all, therefore, taken the Firmanlee's part, and
acted in the most atrocious way towards me. A short
time since, the Emir thought proper to publish in the
villages that all my servants were instantly to return
to their homes, upon pain of losing their property
or lives. I gave them all their option. Most of
them have remained firm, being aware that this order
is the most unjust, as well as the most ridiculous, that
ever was issued. Since that, he has threatened to
seize and murder them here, which he shall not do
without taking my life too. Besides this, he has given
orders in all the villages that men, women, and
children shall be cut in a thousand pieces who render
me the smallest service. My servants, of course, as
you must imagine, cannot go out, and the peasants of
the villages cannot approach the house. Therefore, I
am of no very pleasant situation, being deprived of the
necessary supplies in food, and, what is worse, of
water, for all the water here is brought upon mules'
backs up a great steep.

" I should not be a thoroughbred Pitt if fear were
known to me, or if I could bow to a monster who
could chain together the neck and feet of a venerable,
white-bearded, respectable man . . . and if a father

250 A PERFECT PREDESTINARIAN [CH. vi

had escaped from his clutches, has loaded his infant son
with his chains ! For the space of three years I have
refused to have the smallest communication with the
Emir. He sent me one of his grand envoys the other
day — one of those who were charged with the budget of
lies sent to Mehemet Ali. I refused to see him, or to
read the letter of which he was the bearer.

" My kind friend and former physician, Dr. Meryon,
has blasted his own prospects in life by giving up
everything in Europe to join me in this country, with-
out consulting any one. ... In case of his being at
Leghorn, you would confer a great obligation upon
me, if you would advance him £100 for his expenses,
and give him this letter. . . .

" Ten thousand thanks for your kind recipe for my
eyes. I have not had a moment's time to bestow a
thought upon myself since I received it.

" Dear Lord Frederick ! " (Bentinck) " what changes
have taken place in my situation since I saw him last !
But I am too much of a Turk to complain of the
decrees of Heaven.

" I forgot to mention that there is a plague at Sayda.
Most of the people are shut up ; and, although I have
suffered cruelly from the malady formerly, I am in no
apprehension concerning it, as I am a perfect pre-
destinarian. Happy for me that I have inspired the
same feelings into all those who surround me.

" If it please God that I, like Joseph, should come
safe out of the well, I hope it will be needless to assure
you that, whatever part of your family might fall in
my way, my greatest pleasure would be to endeavour
to make them, by every service and attention, the
evidence of the respect and regard which I bear you."

Lady Hester spent the summer of 1827 in constant
fear of her life. The Emir's power was now firmly

1823-1830] DJOUN 251

re-established in the Mountain, and he had set his
mind upon getting rid of her. She slept, as she told the
doctor, with a nhanjar (poniard) under her pillow,
" and slept as sound as a top. Poor Williams was
terrified out of her senses ; she used to get up in the
night and come to me. At that time there were five
hundred horsemen about in the neighbouring villages,
and they killed three men ; one between the house and
the village, one at the back of my premises, and one
other farther off, just to let me know what they could
do, thinking to terrify me ; but I showed them that I
was not to be frightened." On one occasion a messenger
sent by the Emir laid aside his sabre and pistols before
entering the room. Miss Williams whispered to her
what he had done, and she called to him to take up his
weapons again, and tell his master she did not care a
fig for him and his poisons. " If he means to try his
strength with me, I am ready." At last, Sir Stratford
Canning, our Ambassador at Constantinople, hearing
of her danger, sent over one of his staff to her assist-
ance, and set matters to rights.

Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon

" DJOUN,

" November gtft, 1827.

11 1 have been, during three months of this summer,
absolutely as if in prison. The representatives of the
John Bulls in this country having impressed the Emir
Beshyr with the assurance that I had not a friend in
the world, he proceeded upon unheard outrages
towards me, and, if he did not actually put my life in
danger, he had it publicly cried,1 that whoever served
me should be bastinadoed and amerced.

"This unheard-of stretch of insolence was set to
rights by our old friend at Constantinople, who acted
very well towards me. The Emir Beshyr, with all the
art and meanness well known to him, has now become
abjectly humble. One of his people told me it was not

1 " The criers in villages on Mount Lebanon stand on the roofs of the
houses at sunset, and with a loud voice, give out the orders and pro-
clamations of their Sheicks and Emirs/

25 2 LADY HESTER'S BLINDNESS [CH. vi

his doings, but the work of . . ., who had put it into his
head, and finding that he had made a false calculation,
and displeased great and small in the country by his
vile conduct, he is humble enough, and repents having
given me an opportunity of showing what I am. I
am thus become more popular than ever, having shown
an example of firmness and courage no one could
calculate upon — it was poor little David and the giant.
But the God who defended David defended me from
all the assassins by whom I was surrounded. Even
water from the spring the beast would not let me
have. The expense to get provisions brought in the
night by people was enormous. Some risked their
lives to serve me and bring me food. One person only
came openly, and that was a woman, saying she would
die sooner than obey such atrocious orders, and called
down curses on the Emir, the Consuls, and all of them.
This conduct was well worthy a follower of Ali. . . .

" A young seyd, a friend of mine, when riding one
day in a solitary part of the mountain, heard the echo
of a strange noise in the rocks. He listened, and
hearing it again, got off his horse to see what it was.
To his surprise, in the hollow of the rock he saw an
old eagle, quite blind and unfledged by age. Perched
by the eagle he saw a carrion crow feeding him. If
the Almighty thus provides for the blind eagle, he will
not forsake me, and the carrion crow may look down
with contempt on your countrymen.

" I say this because I have seen two doctors — they
were English — and they tell me that, though my eyes
are good, my nerves are destroyed, and that causes
my blindness. Writing these few lines will be some
days' illness to me ; but I make an effort, in order to
assure you of the grief I have felt at being, I fear, the
cause of your affairs being worse than if you had not

1823-1830] CONSULS AGAIN! 253

known me. All I can say is, if God helps me, I
shall not forget you. You can do nothing for me now;
trust in God, and think of the eagle. Remember ! all is
written; we can change nothing of our fate by
lamenting and grumbling. Therefore, it is better to
be like a true Turk, and do our duty to the last, and
then beg of the believers in one God a bit of daily
bread ; and if it come not, die of want, which perhaps
is as good a death as any other, and less painful. But
never act contrary to the dictates of conscience, of
honour, of nature, or of humanity."

Lady Hester to Mr. John Webb

(Supposed date) " October^ 1827.

" I thank you a thousand times, my dear sir, for the
anxiety you express on my account; and, although
surrounded by a hundred difficulties, I am cheerful,
and the Turks behave very well to me. That old
monster, the Emir Beshyr, is pretty quiet at this
moment, at least as far as regards me ; but he is
reducing to beggary and to misery all who surround
him. A real Turk is a manly, though rather violent,
kind-hearted being, and if he has confidence in you,
very easy to deal with. I have often wondered at
their gentlemanlike patience with low, blustering,
vulgar men, who give themselves more airs than an
Ambassador, because chance has placed them as
Consul or agent in some dirty town not equal to a
village in France ; men who, in fact, in Europe, would
scarcely have their bow returned in the street by a
man of condition. It is the general conduct of these
sort of people that have given the Orientals such a
false idea of Europeans. The race of Christians here
is of the vilest people in the world; not all totally
without talent, but all without principle, or a single

254 CHRISTIANS OF THE EAST [CH. vi

good quality. Out of the great number of children,
both boys and girls, which I have taken before they
have changed their teeth, not one has turned out pass-
able, and most of them have become vagabonds. If a
poor man falls ill, and gives his wife a little trouble to
wait upon him, she soon ends the business with a
little poison ; and if a woman marries again, the
husband casts off all her children by the former
marriage, and she, without remorse, leaves them to
die in a hovel, or abandons them under a tree to beg
for subsistence. It was only last night that one of
these wretched beings came to me, skin and bone,
having been thirty days ill of a fever. The very girls
I have brought up with the greatest care have, when
married, beaten their children of two years old so
violently as to stun them ; and one, from the blow she
gave her child upon the head, caused the bowels to
protrude more than a span. A man thinks nothing of
taking up a stone as large as his head, and throwing it at
his wife when she is with child. These are the beastly
people that create the compassion of Europeans — a
horrid race, that deserves to be exterminated from the
face of the earth. What a contrast between these
wretches and the wild Arabs, who will traverse
burning sands barefooted to receive the last breath of
some kind relation or friend, who teach their children
at the earliest period resignation and fortitude, and
who always keep alive a spirit of emulation amongst
them ! They are the boldest people in the world, yet
are endued with a tenderness quite poetic, and their
kindness extends to all the brute creation by which
they are surrounded. For myself, I have the greatest
affection and confidence in these people ; besides, I
admire their diamond eyes, their fine teeth, and the
grace and agility (without capers) which is peculiar to

1823-1830] BATTLE OF NAVARINO 255

them alone. When one sees these people, one's
thoughts naturally revert to the time of Abraham,
when man had not his head filled with all the false
systems of the present day. . . .

" I have heard that at Genoa there are very fine
flowers. If you would procure me a few seeds, I
should be very much obliged to you, as my stock of
flowers this year has become very low, owing to my
having had a very careless gardener, who neglected to
water the seeds, so that they never came up. My fine
steed is gone long ago, and my garden remains my
only amusement"

Shortly after this, the news of the battle of Navarino
spread consternation throughout Syria, and almost all
the Frank residents at Sayda hurried panic-struck to
take refuge at Djoun. Lady Hester boarded and
lodged them till they could return home in safety.
Yet she herself was so poverty-stricken that on one
occasion she was driven to sell, for their weight in
gold, forty guineas that she had saved from the ship-
wreck, and treasured up as her poor brother's parting

S'.ft. The following year, however, the death of Lady
anks put her in possession of her annuity of £1,500.
She did not hear of the doctor's ill-fated voyage till
long afterwards. She then wrote to him at Pisa, where
she believed him to be, and the letter followed him to
England.

Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon

" DJOUN,

"March id, 1828.

" I have received the account of your disasters by
sea, and latterly the books you were so good as to
send me. The books I cannot read, and I have
nobody to read them for me; however, I thank you
for your kind attention. I am much afflicted at the
trouble and vexation you have had, and at the situation
in which you find yourself. I must say, it would be
very imprudent to bring women or children into this

..

256 LADY HESTER'S PROTECTION [CH.

country at this moment, and a great source of fatigue
and anxiety to me, for they could not be comfortable
under the present circumstances of the time. What I
should propose is, that when you have settled your
business, you immediately set off alone with a Dutch
passport, in case things should turn out ill before you
arrive. Leave Mrs. Meryon at Pisa, where she could
remain very comfortably until you return. . . .

" The plague will be over before you get here. The
Turks behave extremely well towards me ; the
Christians and Franks as ill. I shall say nothing about
the state of my affairs (you may guess what it may be
in these times), nor the state of my health, without
a person of any kind to help me in anything. . . .

" Salute Mrs. Meryon, and say I hope no childish
feeling will prevent her from allowing you to be absent
a little while. I feel for her — but I cannot write. She
may rely upon me ; only obey me strictly. Had you
done so before, things might have been otherwise for
all ; but simpletons will be wise men, and that is what
has turned the world upside down, as well as caused
much unhappiness to individuals. I promise to keep
you only a few months, but I want to see you."

Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon

" DjOUN,

" August 2$th, 1828.

" I have heard from Mr. Webb's house that you are
gone to England. My heart misgives me. ... Do
not let your head be crammed with ideas that you
cannot land ; for, notwithstanding the departure of
Consuls and Franks from this part of the world, I
firmly believe that any one coming to me, either in a
man-of-war or an open boat, his landing would not be
opposed, even if things were more decidedly bad than
they are. . . . Never write to me but through Mr.

1823-1830] DJOUN 257

Webb's house, whether you come or do not come. I
want no reasons, and no long stories. . . . You must
not think of bringing any Frank servant with you. I
have a room ready for you, and I hope you will be
very comfortable. . . .

" P.S. — Ah ! why did you not come directly, and
bring Lucy ? What a comfort to me ! "

Neither of these letters was in Lady Hester's hand-
writing ; they were dictated to Miss Williams, who
often acted as her secretary. The next tells of the loss
of this faithful friend and companion — to her an utterly
irreparable one.

Elizabeth Williams had been with her very many
years, loyally following her fortunes in weal and woe,
health and sickness, privation and danger. She was
the only person about her on whom Lady Hester
could at all depend, and had given signal proof of her
attachment and devotion to her service. Lady Hester
was now entirely friendless and forsaken ; there was
no one left to help and stand by her; and she was
virtually at the mercy of a crew of villainous servants,
like those who (as it will be seen) had robbed and
deserted her on her sick bed.

Lady Hester to Mr. John Webb

" DJOUN,

" October 2%tht 1828.

" When I received your letter of July i7th, I was
very ill, confined to my room, and occasionally
delirious. Nevertheless, in a moment of reason, I
desired M. Gerardin to acquaint you with the great
loss I had sustained in the faithful Miss Williams.

" After two years of plague, there broke out, over
almost all Mount Lebanon, a kind of fever, which I do
not know precisely how to name. Whether it was a
sort of yellow or malignant fever, poor Miss Williams
fell a victim to it, as well as a servant named Moosa,
the only one in whom I had any confidence ; and I but
just escaped death from it myself. I am, as it were,
18

258 DEATH OF MISS WILLIAMS [CH. vi

come to life again by a miracle, owing to the attentions
of a rich peasant, who came from a considerable dis-
tance to assist me. He found me entirely abandoned,
delirious, and at the point of death ; and left in that
state by whom? — by wicked maids, who had cost Miss
Williams and me such pains in endeavouring to make
something of them. You may easily imagine that I
did not keep such ungrateful sluts an instant after I
came to myself. Even in the weak state in which I
was, I felt in a rage at the deplorable accounts which
were given me of the detestable indifference they
showed when Miss Williams was dying, occupying
themselves in pilfering what they could lay their hands
on. But I have already told you what the Christians
of this country are. At the present moment, I have
nobody to assist me but some old women of the
village, the most stupid and ignorant creatures in the
world. My greatest resource is a girl of eight years
old, whom I have brought up, who appears attached
to me,1 and who is less stupid than the others. How-
ever, one cannot get well very fast, attended by such
people, to whom it is impossible to trust a key. I am
moved from my bed to the sofa, and from the sofa to
the bed, and I am not yet able to walk without
support ; but, if I was better waited on, and had more
quiet, and proper things to eat, I know very well what
an effort my iron constitution would make, which has
brought me through this illness without doctor or
doctor's stuff. I have a good appetite ; but my weak-
ness of stomach does not enable me to digest the coarse
and badly cooked food which they give me to eat,
seeing that my stomach has been very much dis-
ordered from want of nourishment during fifteen

1 This was the girl Fatoom, who afterwards robbed her of money
and effects to a considerable amount.

1823-1830] DJOUN 259

days, having subsisted all that time on barley water
and plain water.

" My ignorance of what passed around me was not,
properly speaking, the delirium of fever; it was a
stupor, caused by the neglect with which I was
treated. The peasant says that when he entered my
bedroom, he found me stiff and cold, in a state of one
dying of hunger. He gave me food immediately.
After some days I came to myself, and am now
gaining strength. But in the midst of all this, I am
not melancholy. What has happened, has happened,
and whatever is, is best. ... It seems to me that,
if Dr. Meryon had decided upon coming, he would
have been here before now. Well ! I have got over
this illness without his assistance, or that of any other
doctor, and one feels much more elevated when God
has been one's physician. It is the Supreme Being
alone who has saved me in all my difficulties, for
these last twenty years, and who has given me
strength to support what others would have sunk
under."

This letter was communicated by Mr. Webb to
Dr. Meryon, who had returned to risa in October,
and on hearing of Lady Hester's distressed situation,
was induced " to set aside every other consideration,
and make the voyage to Syria without loss of time,
even in the depth of winter." But this intention only
proved another illustration of the old adage, " More
haste, less speed " ; for exactly two years elapsed
before he carried it out, and hastened to her assistance.
It was in December, 1828, that he proposed to go to
Djoun, and it was in December, 1830, that he arrived.

No letters of hers are forthcoming during these
two years ; but the following account of her, given by
a Mr. Davidson, must refer to the first of them.

" How I wish," writes Miss Wynn, in July, 1835,
" I could fix here one quarter of the amusement and

260 MR. DAVIDSON [CH. vi

information which I have derived from the conversa-
tion of Mr. Davidson, the Eastern traveller ; he seems
to me like a man walked out of the 'Arabian Nights '
bodily. ... I was asking one day about Lady Hester
Stanhope. He did not see her, having arrived just
after the death of her only English companion, who,
having begun as maid, ended as secretary, friend,
&c.f &c. He describes her, as others have done,
turning night into day, and sleeping through the
daylight, with very weak eyes, and without any
pursuit but astrology. He says she has lost much
of her power, or, rather, of her widely extended
influence, still possessing the most arbitrary authority
over her own small district. This diminution of
power may be ascribed partly to her increase of years,
which prevents her from riding and showing herself
among them, partly to the want of that novelty which
dazzles, but chiefly from the want of money, from the
weight of debt, which prevents her from spending
among them the annual income which she derives
from England. Upon this subject he gave us a story
curiously illustrative of Oriental character.

"About two years ago, Lady Hester went into
Persia, with a view of obtaining assistance and pro-
tection from the Shah. She provided a present of
English goods, which was really very handsome.
This was (according to etiquette) offered to the Shah
by means of the interpreter, through whom were also
sent the thanks, with all the grandiloquence of the
East, his sense of the magnificence of the present ;
sun, moon, and stars were also eclipsed ; gratitude
was described in the same terms, their admiration for
the spirit, liberality, greatness of mind, of the English
aristocracy, of which he felt the influence so strongly,
as to be aware that to the English the true way of

1823-1830] DJOUN 261

showing the sense of favours received was to gratify
their noble nature by asking more. Aware not only
of this, but that his poor empire did not contain
anything worthy of being offered to the great lady,
he would ask of her the favour of a loan. Her project
(which the Shah had discovered) was to borrow
money of him which she never could repay." — Diaries
of a Lady of Quality.

This is but one instance of the ridiculous stories
told of Lady Hester. Her journey to Persia is entirely
imaginary.

But to return to the doctor and his peregrinations.
When, in the winter of 1828, he decided to go to Lady
Hester, " although the navigation of the Mediterranean
is very boisterous " at that season, he found a
merchantman at Leghorn about to sail for Beyrout,
and made his agreement with the captain. Nothing
remained but to sign it, and here Mrs. Meryon
intervened. She absolutely refused to be left behind,
and, mindful of sea-sickness and pirates, as abso-
lutely refused to go with him. The merchantman
sailed without him, the winter passed, spring came,
then summer, and still Mrs. Meryon " hesitated and
wavered," and her husband vainly awaited her
decision. At last she agreed that he should take
her back to England, and return to embark alone.
In August, 1829, they accordingly started homewards,
via Marseilles, and got as far as Paris. Here she
changed her mind, and declared she would go with
him, and they went back to Marseilles; but " it was
not till November, 1830, that she could be prevailed
upon to set her foot in a vessel." The doctor's
patience and devotion are quite admirable. A whole
twelvemonth of persuasion would have tried the
temper of most men.

They embarked in a small French brig, and, after a
prosperous voyage, reached Beyrout on December 8th.
Lady Hester had got ready for them a comfortable
and convenient cottage in the village of Djoun, and
sent servants and donkeys to meet them, with a letter
of welcome for the doctor. She expressed her pleasure
at his coming, but reminded him that she had warned

262 ARRIVAL OF DR. MERYON [CH. vi

him not to bring his wife with him, for English ladies,
she thought, could never make themselves happy in
Syria. As he had, however, chosen to do so, Mrs.
Meryon must not expect any special attention from
her, beyond that of making her as comfortable as
might be in her new home. The doctor scented
trouble in the air.

He found Lady Hester little changed, very gracious,
and glad to see him. To his great surprise she,
who hitherto had hardly even condescended to take
his arm, now gave him the Oriental kiss of peace on
both cheeks, and they sat down to dinner together.
He was shocked to find how poor she had become ;
to note the rush-bottomed chairs, the small unpainted
deal table, with its scanty table-cover, the plates of
coarse yellow earthenware, and the two silver spoons,
which, she told him, were all she had. She said she
had entertained the young Due de Richelieu in a
similar style, but had been far better provided before
her severe illness two years ago, when her servants
plundered her of everything they could lay hands on,
taking even the cushions and covers of her sofa. She
detained him — much against his will — till past mid-
night ; and when, at last released, h£ hurried back
to Mrs. Meryon, he found her in poignant distress,
persuaded that he had been devoured by wolves or
hyaenas.

Lady Hester's mode of life at this period is minutely
described by the doctor. She had, for some years
past, got into the habit of sitting up the greater part
of the night, and always went to bed unwillingly, as
she was a bad sleeper. Yet, when once laid down, she
seldom rose till late in the afternoon, transacting all
her business, giving her orders, and writing her letters
in bed. Much, if not most, of her time was thus spent
in her bedroom, of which the doctor gives a deplorable
picture.

"This room bore no resemblance to an English
or French chamber, and, independent of its rude
furniture, was hardly better than a common peasant's.
Its appearance, when illness confined its occupant to
her bed, was something of this sort ; for I often

1 1823-1830] LADY HESTER'S APARTMENT 263

1 entered it, early in the morning, before breakfast.
[On the floor, which was of cement, lay, upon an
Egyptian mat, a large bit of drab felt, of the size of
a bed-side carpet, and a coarse chintz cushion, from
! which her black slave, Zezefoon, had just risen, and
I where she had slept by her mistress' side ; the slave
having this privilege over the maid, who always slept
behind a curtain. This dirty, red cotton curtain was
suspended by a cord across the room, to keep off the
wind when the door opened, most of the curtain rings
being torn off, so that the curtain hung, alternately,
suspended here, and dangling there, a testimony of
the little time the maids found for mending. There
were three windows to the room, all uncurtained ; one
was nailed up by its shutter on the outside, and one
closed by a bit of felt on the inside ; the third only
was reserved for the admission of light and air,
looking on the garden. In ^two deep niches of the
wall were heaped on a shelf a few books, some bundles
tied up in handkerchiefs, writing paper, &c., all in
confusion, with sundry other things for daily use ;
such as white plate, with several pairs of scissors,
two or three pairs of spectacles, &c., and another with
pins, sealing wax, wafers, &c., with a common white
inkstand, and the old parchment cover of a merchant's
day-book, with blotting paper inside, by way of a
blotting book, in which, spread on her lap as she sat
up in bed, she generally wrote her letters. These
places were seldom swept out, and dust and cobwebs
covered the books, of which, I believe, she never
looked into any, except Tissot's Avis au Peuple,
another medical book, of which I have forgotten the
title, the Court Calendar, a Bible, and Domestic
Cookery. An earthenware ybrick, or jug with a
spout, stood in one of the windows, with a small

264 LADY HESTER'S BED [CH. vi

copper basin, and this was her washing apparatus.
Near the foot of the bed stood an upright, ill-made,
walnut-wood box, with a piece of green calico hanging
before it. The ground was strewn with small bundles,
gown-pieces of silk or coloured cotton, which she
destined as presents, bits of twine and brown paper,
left from day to day, of packages which had been
undone, &c."

Her bed had neither curtains nor mosquito net, and
consisted only of planks nailed on trestles at a slight
incline; over this was laid a mattress with Barbary
blankets instead of sheets, and pillows covered with
soft Turkish silk. There was no counterpane, but
a woollen abba, or fur pelisse, was thrown over it,
as occasion required. Close at hand hung the bell-
rope, a stout cord, knotted at the end, and reeved
through a pulley screwed into the ceiling, communi-
cating with a powerful bell, that was the terror of the
household. On a low stool by the bedside, which
served as a table, were placed a variety of things she
might want or fancy, such as strawberry preserve,
lemonade, chamomile tea, ipecacuanha lozenges, a
bottle of cold water, &c., or else violet syrup, wine,
aniseeds, or cloves, quince preserve, orgeat, a cup
of cold tea, covered with its saucer, a pill box, &c.

"So thickly was the wooden stool covered, that it
required the greatest dexterity to take up one thing
without knocking down half-a-dozen more. And, in
this respect, the noiseless movements and dexterity
of the Syrian and black women pass all imagination.
For months together nothing of this assemblage would
be upset or broken.

" Lady Hester had no watch, clock, or timepiece,
and generally the last words, when I left her in the
evening, were, 'Doctor, tell me what o'clock it is
before you go.' I took the liberty of asking her
why she had never sent for a watch or timepiece

1823-1830] LADY HESTER'S RESTLESSNESS 265

during all the years she had remained on Mount
I Lebanon. ' Because I cannot bear anything that is
I unnatural,' was her answer : * the sun is for the day,
i and the moon and stars for the night, and by them

I like to measure time.' "

Next to her bedroom was her Turkish bath, of
which she was extremely fond, and used, in the
doctor's opinion, oftener than was good for her
health.

She slept, according to Oriental custom, more than
half dressed. Her night shirt was of silk and cotton,
over which she wore a white quilted jacket and a
short pelisse. She retained her turban, with the
keffeyah (a striped handkerchief worn by the Bedouins)
tied under her chin, and wrapped a shawl round her
head and shoulders.

When she had at last made up her mind to retire
to rest, and dismissed the wearied doctor, her maids
gave him a lamentable account of what they had to
undergo. Let us hope they a little exaggerated their
sufferings. Very often she found fault with her bed,
and had it made over again in her presence ; while
this was doing, she would smoke her pipe, call for the
sugar basin to eat two or three lumps of sugar, and
for a clove to take away the taste of the sugar. The
night lamp was next lighted, and two wax-lights
placed ready for use in the window; she then got
into bed, and the maid who was to sleep in the room
lay down on her mattress. The other girl was sent
away, but had hardly reached her room when the
bell rang violently; Lady Hester wanted broth, or
lemonade, or orgeat. This was brought on a tray,
one of the maids holding a candle, shaded by her
hand, while her mistress sat up in bed and sipped it.
Sometimes she ate a bit of dry toast, pronounced
it ill-made and sent for another piece, perhaps to be
left untouched. Then she again composed herself to
sleep, but not for long; she felt a pain somewhere
or other, and rang for a fomentation of chamomile,
elder flower, or mallow. The gardener had now to
be sent for, water boiled, &c., then she remembered
some order she had forgotten to give during the day,
and the servant in question was at once summoned

266 LADY HESTER'S BELL [CH. vi

to receive it. The bell, they declared, was always
going; and the simple solution of the difficulty that
commended itself to them — never answering it — was
warily guarded against by Lady Hester, who em-
ployed two stout watchmen to rouse and produce the
delinquents. Why she should have required to ring
her bell at all, with one maid always sleeping in her
room (elsewhere the doctor says there were two, see
p. 263) is not so easy to explain.

At last Lady Hester slept, and for three, four, or
five hours they were left in peace. But no sooner
was she awake than the dreaded sound was again
heard, and the business of the day commenced in
grim earnest. She received, one after the other, her
steward (Paolo Perini, a Roman), her secretary (a
Frenchman named Chasseaud), the doctor, the groom,
the gardener, and sometimes the whole of her house-
hold. It was numerous ; for, besides those already
named and the two girls, Fatoom and Zezefoon, who
principally waited upon her, there was a dragoman,
two stablemen, a cook, a scullion, three or four men
as muleteers and water-carriers, two others, employed
as messengers, to carry letters, &c., who had been in
her service from ten to fifteen years, and half-a-dozen
black slaves. Nobody — not even the doctor — was
allowed to enter except at her summons.

Every morning the secretary brought her a list of
comers and goers, and an exact account of what had
been done by each servant during the preceding day.
Few, indeed, escaped a scolding when thus brought
to book ; for the violence and irritability of her temper
had greatly increased, and the household over which
she ruled was — to put it mildly — an exasperating one.
It was very badly managed, and composed of idle,
lying, pilfering, rascally servants,1 of whom she used
to say, " I could hang half-a-dozen of them, if I chose."
She was a severe task-mistress, and by no means

1 This is how the doctor describes them. " A Turk for work is little
better than a brute animal ; he moves about nimbly, when roused by
vociferation and threats, and squats down like a dog when his work
is done. England produces no type of the Syrian serving-man. He
sets about his work as a task that is given to him, and when it is over,
sits down immediately to smoke his pipe and to gossip, or seeks a
snug place near at hand, and goes to sleep. You call him, and set
him to do something else, and the same practice follows. The next
day you expect he will, of his own accord, recommence what was

11823-1830] DJOUN 267

sparing in her punishments, often boxing the ears
of the culprits with her own hand ; but she exercised
no sort of supervision. She told the doctor that, for
ifour years past, she had never put her head outside
I her own court; "for if I did, I should certainly fall
(into such a passion with some of the people, that it
would make me ill." She was peremptory and im-
jperious, and, like her father, exacted blind and
unquestioning obedience; her servants were to have
neither will nor opinion of their own, and she tolerated
no suggestions. The gardener might send to say that
he had dug up a piece of ground, and found it suited
for such and such vegetables. "Tell him," she would
reply, "that, when I order him to dig, he is to dig,
and not to give his opinion as to what the ground
is fit for. It may be for his grave that he digs, it
may be for mine. He must know nothing until I
send my orders, and so bid him go about his busi-
ness." Again, a girl had presumed to alter a message
given to her about some mats, and Lady Hester had
her nose rubbed against the mats to punish her. Yet,
with all this sharp discipline, she struggled vainly to
break her maids of their disgusting habits. " Doctor,"
she would cry in despair, "they wipe their noses and
then the drinking glasses with the same towel ; and
lie, and lie, with an assurance that sets detection at
defiance." She strove, too, diligently and vehemently,
to enforce morality in her household, but with no
better success. As long as Miss Williams lived, a
semblance of propriety was observed ; but, when she
was gone, this, too, disappeared, and Lady Hester
stormed and chastised in vain.1

Though thus violent and tyrannical, she was, at the
same time, extremely liberal and generous as regards

shown him on the preceding day ; but no such thing ; you have to
tell him over again, and so every day. He is a thief from habit, and
a liar of the most brazen stamp, as no shame is ever attached to
detection. In plausible language, protestations of honour and fidelity,
he has no superior; and, if beaten and reviled, he will smother
his choler, nay, kiss the hand that has chastised him, but waits
a fit opportunity for vengeance, and carefully weighs kicks against
coppers."

1 Occasionally, however, she showed herself lenient. Once, when
two black slaves had misbehaved, "with the sad results of such
conduct" (in the doctor's phraseology this means a baby), she
sent for the offenders, insisted on their instant marriage, and set
them free.

268 LADY HESTER'S DRESS [CH. vi

clothes, New Year's gifts, &c. ; and the doctor declares
that he never knew a servant who did not wish to
leave her, nor one who did not wish to come back,
when he had. Not only the presents, but the dis-
honest gains to be obtained in her service, rendered
it popular, "to place nothing to the account of that
spell which she infallibly cast over everybody who
came within the sphere of her attraction."

Having given her orders for the day, Lady Hester
at last rose, and dressed. Her costume, he assures
us, was very becoming, and concealed the emacia-
tion, through ill-health and advancing years, of her
once fine figure. She wore a very ample white
merino abba? looped across the chest, and falling in
graceful folds to her ankles, over a crimson robe
(joobey) of the same length; and to this, in winter,
she added a warm pelisse. Underneath was a cream-
coloured or flowered gown (hombaz) and wide scarlet
cloth trousers; on her feet, loose Turkish yellow
morocco boots. Her turban was a coarse, woollen
cream-coloured Barbary shawl, wound round the red
fez that covered her shaven head, and over this was
thrown the red and yellow striped keffeyah> the ends
either tied under her chin, or hanging down on each
side of her face.

" She never wore pearls, precious stones, or
ornaments of any kind, as some travellers have
asserted ; indeed, she had none in her possession, and
never had had any from the time of her shipwreck.
Speaking of her own dress, she would say, ' I think
I look something like those sketches of Guercino's,
where you see scratches and touches of the pen round
the heads and persons of his figures, so that you don't
know whether it is hair or a turban, a sleeve or an
arm, a mantle or a veil, which he has given them .
And when she was seated on the sofa, in a dim corner
of the room, the similitude was very just."

During the day, she walked in her garden, now her
chief pleasure, received reports from some of the

1 One of these is now in my possession.

1823-1830] PACHA OF ACRE 269

numerous emissaries and spies she employed, who
kept her well informed of all that went on in the
:ountry, and attended to her correspondence. This
took up a great deal of time. Her letters were volu-
minous, but chiefly dictated to her secretary ; whatever
>he herself wrote was written, as we have seen, in bed.
She corresponded on every subject under the sun.

" In the same day, I have frequently known her to

dictate, with the most enlarged political views, papers

that concerned the welfare of a pashalik, and the next

moment she would descend, with wondrous facility, to

some trivial details about the composition of a house-

3aint, the making of butter, the drenching of a sick

lorse, the choosing lambs, or the cutting out of a

maid's apron. She had a finger in everything, and in

everything was an adept"

One of her constant correspondents was the Pacha
of Acre, the same Abdalla whose blood-fine she had
iclped to pay (see p. 224). He had remained her fast
riend, even though she sometimes told him home
truths.

" How odious has Abdalla Pacha rendered himself
t>y his confiscations and extortions," she said to the
doctor, " because none of his people will speak the
truth to him ! When he wants money, his secretaries
tell him he has only to sign an order for it, and then,
perhaps, half-a-dozen families are driven into exile, or
half ruined. But I speak plainly to him ; and once,
when I wrote to him how he was making himself hated
by a particular act of oppression about money, he tore
the buyurdee" (edict) "in pieces, which gave force to
that act, and drove his secretaries from his presence
for having flattered and deceived him. Why, Doctor,
when he receives a letter from me, if there are half-a-
dozen others at the same time, he will let them lie on

270 LADY HESTER'S CONVERSATION [CH. vi

his sofa whilst he reads mine, and then will put that
alone in his pocket, and take it into his harym to read
it over again."

Lady Hester's happiest time was, perhaps, that spent
in smoking and talking, as she sat on her sofa in her
parlour, as the doctor calls it. This, another bare, \
scarcely furnished apartment, also looking into the
garden, and divided from her bedroom by an open
divan, was her reception room for visitors. Here they
perforce remained, hour after hour, listening to a
conversation which it seemed impossible should ever
come to an end. She herself was never tired, and
never thought it possible' they could have heard enough.
Mr. Way, the missionary, was with her from three
o'clock in the afternoon till daybreak the next morning ;
and one unfortunate gentleman, whose name is not
given, actually fainted away " from fatigue and con-
straint." The doctor himself declares he has sat with
her for eight, nine, ten, and even as much as twelve or
thirteen hours at a stretch. " It may be alleged that
nothing was more easy than to find excuses for break-
ing up a conversation ; but it was not so— for her
words ran on in such an uninterrupted stream that one
never could seize a moment to make a pause." He
may well speak of her " unexampled colloquial powers,"
for it seemed to be not only a delight, but a positive
necessity for her to talk. Her language, he tells us,
was " lofty and sublime," or " full of pathos and feeling,"
according to the emotions she wished to excite ; and
she had an alarming facility for discerning the character
of her listeners.

" There was no secret of the human heart, however
carefully concealed, that she could not discover ; no
workings in the listener's mind that she could not
penetrate ; no intrigue, from the low cunning of vulgar
intrigue to the vast combinations of politics, that she
could not unravel ; no labyrinth, however tortuous,
that she would not thread.

" It was this comprehensiveness and searching
faculty, this intuitive penetration, which made her so

1823-1830] DJOUN 271

formidable; for, under imaginary names, when she
wished to show a person that his character and course
of life were unmasked to her view, she would, in his
very presence, paint him such a picture of himself, in
drawing the portrait of another, that you might see
the individual writhing on his chair, unable to conceal
the effect her words had on his conscience. . . . She
once told me a pathetic history of a faithful servant,
who, in the pecuniary distresses of his master, served
him for several years with the purest disinterestedness.
I was so touched by her eloquent and forcible manner
of recounting the story, and with the self-application
that I made of it to my own tardiness in going to her
in her distress, together with my intention of leaving
her owing to our recent differences, that I burst into
tears and wept, as the expression is, bitterly."

No wonder the doctor felt that to spend a couple
of hours with her was to go to school, even while
mentally appraising the market value of what he had
heard. It was chiefly during his last and longest
visit that he got together a store of anecdotes for his
three volumes of " Memoirs."

CHAPTER VII

DJOUN — M. DE LAMARTINK — MR. KINGLAKE — DR. MERYON
1830—1838

As soon as the doctor's family were comfortably settled
in their cottage, Mrs. Meryon came, by appointment, to
pay her first visit to Lady Hester. She was received
with the greatest possible kindness, remained for three
hours, and, as she was going away, Lady Hester sent
for a handsome Turkish jacket of gold brocade, put it
on her with her own hands, and wound round her
head a beautifully embroidered muslin turban. This
was the Eastern method of doing honour to departing
guests, by robing them when they took their leave.
Mrs. Meryon, who knew nothing of the custom, took
off the jacket and turban, and laid them down on the
table without a word. The doctor, having lived so
long in the country, might, one would think, have
warned her that this would infallibly be considered a
grievous insult and offence ; and even in the West,
such a way of refusing a present might scarcely be
considered gracious. However, the things were sent
to her next day ; Lady Hester took no notice, and all
went well for about a month.

A serious cause of quarrel then arose. The Pacha
of Damascus, hearing of her physician's return, desired
Ahmed Bey to write and ask Lady Hester to send him
to see a friend of his, one Hassan Effendi, who was
painfully afflicted in his mouth, which was " a source of
deep regret to the faithful, as he was one of the most
distinguished chanters of the Koran." Ahmed Bey
was a very old friend of Lady Hester's, and an impor-
tant personage, who had " taken particular notice " of
the doctor several years before. Lady Hester was
keen that he should at once start for Damascus ; but

272

1830-1838] QUARREL WITH DR. MERYON 273

ie himself was far from anxious to cross the Lebanon,
then deep in snow, at such a season ; and Mrs. Meryon
strongly objected to being left alone, as she was
1 totally new to the country, and had not a soul to talk
;o." True, M. Chasseaud and his wife were living
close by ; but still, an utter stranger, and unacquainted
with the language, as she was, it is not surprising that
she should have been reluctant to part with her husband,
even for a week or two. Lady Hester, however, confi-
dently undertook to convince her that she ought to let
lim go. She sent for her, and exerted all her powers
of eloquence in urging every argument she could think
of, to win her consent. But she had met her match.
Mrs. Meryon " lent a civil but incredulous ear " to all
she had to say — we may be sure it was a good deal—
and remained inflexible, ending, as she had begun, " If
my husband goes, it will make me miserable."

Lady Hester, unaccustomed to be thwarted, was
exceedingly angry and annoyed, but did not yet
consider herself beaten. She allowed a few days to
elapse, and then sent a message to the doctor, desiring
him to write her word whether he had overcome Mrs.
Meryon's scruples. He sent a letter of excuse, declin-
ing to go, and the next morning, as he and his wife
were at breakfast, the girl Fatoom rushed in, and began
abusing them both for having been insolent to her
Lady, and caused her to fall ill. Mrs. Meryon, though
she did not understand a word the girl said, was quite
equal to the occasion ; she took Fatoom by the shoulders
and turned her out of the room. Nearly a week now
passed without further tidings from Djoun ; then Lady
Hester again sent for the doctor, and had a stormy
interview with him in the presence of M. Chasseaud,
which ended in his declaring he would take his family
back to Europe, and only regretted he had come so far
to so little purpose. Lady Hester raised no objection.
" I have given," she said, " a good deal of advice to
many persons in whom I have taken an interest, and
you are the last of my disciples whom I thought I
could make something of. But it is like cutting the
hair off the legs of half-bred horses ; it grows again,
and you may often get a kick in the face for your pains.
You know what a good opinion they had of you in this
country, which I kept up ; but your conduct now has
spoiled all; for when a man gives his beard to a

274 DEPARTURE OF DR. MERYON [CH. vn

woman, it is all over with him. Remember my words,
and write them down." She made, however, one last
attempt to induce him to change his mind. She pointed
out to him the description Ahmed Bey gave of Hassan
Effendi's malady, " His chest is without pain, and so is
his throat, and the complaint seems to be in his mouth,"
which she interpreted to mean that the great man had
some communication to make to her, too important to
be trusted to a letter. But it was all in vain. The
doctor stood firm to his guns ; to Damascus he would
not go.

He had definitely resolved to return to Europe, but
was obliged to await a remittance from home before he
could do so, and as this did not arrive till the end of
March, it was only on April 7th, 1831, that he left
Djoun. Meanwhile, he and his wife found it no light
matter to have fallen under the displeasure of the liege
lady of Djoun ; for they were in a great measure
boycotted, not only by their neighbours in the village,
but by their friends at Sayda. Lady Hester herself
continued to receive the doctor on perfectly friendly
terms, and provisioned for him the little vessel in which
he embarked. She further sent him, as a parting gift,
a chest of almond cake, and another of baklaawy, " of
all pastry in the world the most delicious," of both of
which she knew he was particularly fond, together
with a very fine amber-headed pipe, and a large supply
of the best Gebely tobacco, from her own private store.

Before leaving, he had recommended to her as a
servant a young Italian, named Lunardi, " a very
excellent young man," who had lived with Mr. Webb
at Leghorn. Lunardi was accordingly sent for, came
to Djoun, and remained for a long time in her service.
He clubbed himself a doctor, though he knew nothing
of medicine ; a practice, Dr. Meryon plaintively adds,
not unfrequent in the Levant.

The next mention of Lady Hester occurs in the
following year — a year memorable in Syrian annals,
for it witnessed the invasion of an Egyptian army
under Ibrahim Pacha, and the siege and capture of
Acre. On this occasion (in September, 1832) a poet
appears on the scene. M. de Lamartine, with his
family and some friends, had established himself at
Beyrout, and the news of his arrival was, as he assures
us, already spread abroad all over the country. He

1830-1838] DJOUN 275

icard a great deal about Lady Hester ; how she had

>een wrecked on the coast of Caramania, and lost an

mmense treasure in gold and jewels ; how she had

then returned to England, sold all her domains,

chartered another vessel with what remained of her

brtune, settled in Syria, and become a great power in

the Lebanon. She was now impoverished, and her

authority on the wane ; but still he felt that a recom-

mendation from her would be of great service to him

among the Arab tribes he was about to visit. He

accordingly proposed to go and see her, though warned

she was not fond of European visitors, and wrote as

bllows :

" MILADY, — Voyageur comme vous, etranger comme
vous dans 1'Orient ; l n'y venant chercher comme vous
que le spectacle de sa nature, de ses ruines et des
Deuvres de Dieu, je viens d'arriver en Syrie avec ma
amille. Je compterais au nombre des jours les plus
nteressants de mon voyage celui oil j'aurais connu une
emme qui est elle-meme une des merveilles de cet
Orient que je viens visiter.

" Si vous voulez bien me recevoir, faites-moi dire le
our qui vous conviendra, et faites-moi savoir si je dois
aller seul, ou si je puis vous mener quelques-uns de
mes amis qui m'accompagnent et qui n'attacheraient
)as moins de prix que moimeme a 1'honneur de vous
*tre presentes.

" Que cette demande, milady, ne contraigne en rien
yotre politesse a m'accorder ce qui repugnerait a vos
habitudes de retraite absolue. Je comprends trop bien
moi-meme le prix de la liberte et le charme de la
solitude pour ne pas comprendre votre refus et le
respecter."

The answer came promptly. On September
Lady Hester's " equerry and physician, Dr. Leonardi "

1 Note that she had then been living in the East for more than
twenty years.

276 M. DE LAMARTINE [CH. vn

(Lunardi, promoted by brevet rank), arrived to conduct
him to her presence, and the same afternoon he and
his friend Amedee de Parseval, started on their journey
to Djoun.

" At seven in the morning, under an already devour-
ing sun, we left Sayda, the ancient Sidon, that projects
into the waves like a glorious memory of past dominion,
and began to climb rugged, bare, calcined heights,
which, rising tier above tier, led to the solitude our
eyes sought for in vain. Each ascent brought another
and higher one to be accomplished ; mountain was
locked to mountain like the serried links of a chain,
divided by deep waterless ravines, sun-bleached, and
strewn with granite boulders. These mountains are
absolutely stripped of soil and vegetation. They are
skeletons that wind and water together have ravaged
for hundreds of years. At last, from one of these
rocks, I looked down upon a wider and deeper valley,
enclosed on all sides by mountains equally majestic
and less sterile. In the midst of this valley, like a vast
tower, rose the mountain of Djoun, encircled by rock-
battlements, which, diminishing towards its summit,
formed an esplanade some hundreds of roods in breadth,
bearing a beautiful and graceful crown of verdure. A
white wall, with a kiosk in one angle, enclosed this
mass of greenery. Here was Lady Hester's abode.
The house is not what would be so called in Europe ;
it is not even a house in the Oriental sense of the
word, but a quaint, confused assemblage of ten or
twelve little buildings, each containing one or two
rooms on the ground-floor, without windows, and
divided one from the other by small courts and gardens ;
exactly similar in aspect to some of the poorer convents
one meets with in the mountains of Spain and Italy,
belonging to the Mendicant Orders. We were each

I 1830-1838] DJOUN 277

I conducted into a kind of narrow cell, without light, and

I without furniture. According to her usual habits,

Lady Hester was not visible till three or four o'clock

in the afternoon. Breakfast was served, and we then

! threw ourselves down on the divan to await the

\ summons of the invisible mistress of this romantic

abode. I was asleep, when, at three o'clock, some one

knocked at my door to announce that she expected

me ; I passed through a court, a garden, an open kiosk

trellised with jasmine, then two or three dark corridors,

and was introduced by a little negro boy, six or eight

years old, into Lady Hester's room. So profound was

the darkness that pervaded it, I had some difficulty in

discerning the noble, grave, gentle, majestic features

of the white-robed figure in Oriental dress which rose

from the divan, and advanced with outstretched hand.

Lady Hester appears to be fifty ; she has features that

years cannot alter. Freshness, colour, and grace depart

with our youth ; but when the beauty is in the form,

the purity of outline, the dignity, the majesty, and the

thought expressed in the face of a man or of a woman,

it may change with the different periods of life, but is

never lost. Such is Lady Stanhope's. She wore a

white turban, with a narrow band of purple woollen

wound round the front, the ends falling on either side

down to her shoulders. A long yellow Cashmere

shawl, and a voluminous Turkish robe of white silk

with flowing sleeves, draped her figure in simple and

majestic folds ; and it was only through an opening

this first tunic left at the chest that one perceived an

under-garment of flowered Persian silk reaching to the

throat, and there fastened by a pearl brooch. Turkish

boots of yellow morocco embroidered in silk completed

this beautiful Oriental costume, which she wore with

the grace and freedom of a person who had worn

278 LAMARTINE'S INTERVIEW [CH. vn

nothing else from her earliest years." — Voyage en
Orient, vol. i.

His account of the interviews that followed fills
eighteen pages of very small print, and was sub-
sequently described by Lady Hester as "half of it
invention, and the other half incorrect" (see p. 381).
One error at least is self-evident. She who liked
holding forth alone, would never have suffered him
to indulge in the lengthy tirades and disquisitions of
which he gives so eloquent a report. They would
have been very summarily cut short. I must perforce
do the same, as I have no room for them, and can
only furnish extracts of this interminable dialogue.

" ' You have come a long way to visit a hermit,'
she began ; ' be welcome. I see very few strangers-
one or two, perhaps, in the course of the year ; but
your letter pleased me, and I wished to make
acquaintance with a person who, like myself, loves
God, Nature, and solitude. Something, besides, told
me that our stars were friendly, and that we should
agree. I am glad to find that my presentiment has
not deceived me. Your features, which I now see,
the very sound of your footsteps as you came along
the corridor, have told me I shall not repent of having
wished to see you. Sit down, and let us talk. We
are already friends.' ' How, Milady, can you so
quickly honour with the name of friend a man whose
name and life are entirely unknown to you? You
can have no idea who I am.' "

This was tentative on the part of the poet, but the
answer came with blunt frankness :

" ' That's very true. I know nothing of what you
are, according to the world, nor what you have done
since you lived among your fellow-men, but I know
what you are in the sight of God. Don't think me

1830-1838] DJOUN 279

mad, as the world often calls me ; but I can't resist
the need I feel of opening my heart to you. There
is a science, lost in your Europe, a science born in
the East, where it has never perished, and still lives.
I possess it. I can read the stars. We are all of us
children of some one of these celestial bodies, that
presided at our birth, and whose influence, malign or
otherwise, is imprinted in our eyes, our foreheads, our
features, the lines of our hands, the shape of our feet,
in our gestures and in our gait. I have been with you
but a few minutes, yet I know you as well as if I had
lived a hundred years in your company. Shall I
reveal you to yourself? Shall I predict your destiny ? '
1 On no account, Milady,' I replied, with a smile, ' I
don't deny what I don't understand ; it is quite con-
ceivable that man may be under the influence of
planets or angels, but I need no revelation to know
what I am — corruption, infirmity, and misery! As
to my destiny, I should consider it a profanation of
the Divinity that conceals it, if I enquired into it
of one of His creatures. As regards the future, I
believe only in God, liberty, and virtue.' 'Never
mind,' she said, 'believe what you please; you are
evidently born under three happy, powerful, and
benign stars, which have endowed you with ana-
logous qualities, and will lead you on to an end,
that I might, if you chose, indicate to you to-day.
God has sent you here to enlighten your soul. You
are one of the men with aspirations and good will
that He requires as His instruments in the miraculous
works He is about to accomplish in this world. Do
you believe that the reign of the Messiah has come ? '
' I was born a Christian,' I said ; ' that is my answer.'
1 A Christian ? so am I ! ' she replied, rather peevishly ;
' but has not He, whom you call Christ, said — I speak

28o ASTERIAL INFLUENCES [CH. vn

to you in parables, but one who cometh after Me will
speak to you in spirit and in truth. That is the
Messiah who is yet to come, the Messiah whom we
expect, whom we shall see with our own eyes, and
for whose advent everything in this world is making
ready. What will you answer? How will you ex-
plain or distort the words I have quoted from your
Gospel? What are your motives for believing in
Christ ?' ' Permit me, Milady,' I replied, ' not to enter
into a discussion of this kind.' "

Nevertheless, he does enter upon it at considerable
length, giving his reasons for professing the Christian
faith, during which Lady Hester's " eyes were veiled
with a little displeasure." But when he cordially
agreed with her as to the moral depravity of the
social world, and its urgent need ol regeneration,
they were —

" Alight with tenderness, and an almost supernatural
lustre. ' Believe what you like,' she repeated, ' you
are none the less one of the men I have been expect-
ing, sent to me by Providence, who have a great part
to play in the work that is in preparation. . . . One
of your stars is certainly Mercury, who gives clearness
and colour to intelligence and to speech. You must
be a poet; I see it in your eyes and the upper part
of your face. There is sunlight, too,' she added, 'in
the poise of your head, and the way that you throw it
back over your left shoulder. You should thank God.
There are few men born under more than one star;
few under a fortunate one; fewer still whose star,
even if favourable, is not counterbalanced by the
opposing influence of a hostile star. You, on the
contrary, have several, all working together in har-
mony to serve you, and aiding one another on your
behalf. What is your name ? ' I told her. ' I have

1830-1838] DJOUN 281

never heard it!' she replied, in the very accents of
I truth."

Here the outraged poet at last spoke out.

" ' Now you see, Milady, what a poor thing is fame!
I have written some verses in my life, that have caused
my name to be repeated a million times in all the
literary echoes of Europe, yet that echo is too feeble
to cross your sea and your mountains, and here I am
a new man, a man completely unknown, whose name
has never been heard ! ' ' Poet or no poet,' she cried,
' I like you, and I hope in you ; we shall meet again,
be sure of that. You will return to the West, but
will soon come back to the East; it is your home.'
' At least the home of my imagination/ I replied. ' Do
not laugh ; I repeat it — your true home — the home
of your forefathers. Now I am sure of it. Look at
your foot ! ' 'I see on it only/ I replied, ' the dust
of your mountain paths, for which I should have to
blush in a European reception-room.' ' No ! Nothing
of the kind ! It is not that ! Look at your foot ! '
(I had never noticed it myself)- ' The instep is very
high ; and when your foot rests on the ground, there
is sufficient space between the heel and the toes for
water to flow through without wetting it. That is
the foot of the Arab ; the foot of the East. You are
a son of these climes, and the time is fast drawing
near when every one will return to the home of his
ancestors. We shall meet again.' Here a black slave
appeared, and touching the ground with his forehead,
while holding his hands over his head, said a few
words in Arabic. 'Go/ she said, 'your dinner is
ready ; but come back to me soon. I will occupy
myself with your horoscope meanwhile — I myself eat
with no one. I live too frugally, a little bread and

282 "CIRCE OF THE DESERTS" [CH. vn

fruit, whenever I feel the need of food, is sufficient
for me ; I must not bind a guest to my own regime' "

She hardly, however, gave him and his friend time
to eat before she sent for him again. He found her
smoking a narghileh ; she offered him another ; and
they sat and talked a long time —

"Always on the favourite subject — the one mysterious
theme of this extraordinary woman, this modern
magician, so exactly recalling the magicians of an-
tiquity— Circe of the deserts ! It appeared to me that
the religious opinions of Lady Hester were a clever
but confused blending of the different religions in
whose midst she had condemned herself to live;
mysterious, like the Druses, of whose mystic secret
she, perhaps alone in this world, holds the key;
resigned, like the Mussulman ; a fatalist, like him ;
expecting the Messiah, like the Jew ; worshipping
Christ, like the Christian, and practising His rule
of charity and morality. Add to this the fantastic
colouring and supernatural dreams of an imagination
imbued with the East, and heated by solitude and
meditation ; a few revelations, perhaps, made by Arab
astrologers, and you will have gained some idea of
the mixture of sublimity and oddity which it is more
easy to call madness than to attempt to analyse and
comprehend. No ! this woman is not mad. Madness,
always too evidently manifest in the eyes, is not
visible in hers; their expression is clear and noble;
madness, betrayed in conversation by the sudden,
disjointed, eccentric breaks that interrupt it, is never
perceptible in Lady Hester's discourse ; it is lofty,
mystic, and nebulous, but well sustained, connected,
and forcible. If I had to pronounce an opinion, I
should say it was a voluntary and simulated madness,

[830-1838] DJOUN 283

that was perfectly self-conscious, and assumed for

reasons of its own. The power for admiration which

icr genius has exercised, and still exercises, over the

irab population of these mountains, sufficiently proves

jthat this pretended insanity is only the means to an
end. The men of this land of miracles, these sons
of the rocks and deserts, whose imagination is more

[vivid and fertile than their horizons of sand and sea,

irequire the words of Mahomet or of Lady Stanhope!

I they require the language of the stars, the pro-
phecies, the miracles, the second sight of genius!
Lady Stanhope understood this; first by the far-
reaching scope of her really superior intellect; and
then, perhaps, like all those endowed with great
mental powers, she has ended by seducing herself,
and become the first neophyte of the symbol she
created for others. This is the impression she made
upon me."

He adds that he would not be surprised to see part
of the destiny she foretold for herself accomplished —
11 an empire in Arabia, a throne in Jerusalem." Lady
Hester again repeated that Destiny was irresistible.

" ' My strength is in that. I await it ; I do not call
for it. I am growing old; I have diminished my
fortune. I am left alone, abandoned on this desert
rock, a prey to the first audacious vagabond that
may break open my gates; surrounded by a troop
of faithless servants and ungrateful slaves, who daily
plunder me, and sometimes threaten my life. Only
the other day I owed my safety to the dagger I used
to defend my breast against a black slave I had brought
up. Well ! in the midst of all these tribulations I am
happy ; I answer everything with the sacred words
of the Mussulman, Allah Kerim! God's will! and I

284 LADY HESTER'S GARDEN [CH. vn

await with confidence the future that I have announced
to you.' "

Coffee was brought in by a black slave every
quarter of an hour. After they had smoked several
pipes, Lady Hester rose.

" ' Come,' she said, ' I will show you a sanctuary

which I allow no profane person to enter — my

garden ! ' We descended into it by a flight of steps ;

and I followed her, in a perfect state of enchantment,

through one of the most beautiful Turkish gardens I

had yet seen in the East. Trellises, from whose green

vaults, like millions of fairy lamps, hung clusters of

the sparkling grapes of the Promised Land ; kiosks

and sculptured arabesques, interlaced with jasmine

and other climbing plants, natives of Asia ; marble

basins, where the water (artificially conveyed, it is

true) comes from the distance of a league to murmur

and play in fountains; alleys planted with all the

fruit trees of England, of Europe, and of these

beauteous climes ; green lawns studded with

flowering shrubs ; marble borders enclosing masses

of flowers, which I never saw before — such is this

garden ! We rested alternately in some of the kiosks

that adorned it, and never once did Lady Hester's

never-failing flow of conversation lose its lofty and

mystic tone. . . . ' Now,' she said at last, ' I will show

you a prodigy of Nature, of which the destination is

known only to me and my adepts. Eastern prophecies

have announced it for many centuries, and now you

shall judge for yourself whether these prophecies are

accomplished.' She opened a door, and we entered a

small court, in which I perceived two Arab mares of

the purest breed, and greatest perfection of form.

1 Look,' she continued, ' at this bay mare. See if

1830-1838] DJOUN 285

Nature has not fulfilled in her all that is written of
the mare that is to carry the Messiah : She will be born
saddled! I saw, as she said, in this fine animal a
freak of Nature sufficiently uncommon to excite the
credulity of a semi-barbarous people. She had a
broad deep cavity behind her shoulders, so exactly in
the form of a Turkish saddle, that she might in truth
be said to be born saddled, and that, but for the want
of stirrups, she might easily have been ridden without
one. This magnificent mare seemed accustomed to
the admiration and respect with which Lady Stanhope
and her slaves treated her, and to have a foreboding
of the dignity of her mission ; no one has ever ridden
her, and two black Arab grooms are in constant
attendance, never losing sight of her for a single
moment. Another mare — snow-white, and in my
opinion far handsomer — shares with the mare of the
Messiah the respect and care of Lady Stanhope. She,
too, has never been ridden. Lady Stanhope did not
tell me, but gave me to understand that this mare,
though less sacred, had still a mysterious and im-
portant mission to fulfil, and I thought I perceived
that Lady Hester reserved her for her own use on the
day she made her entry, by the Messiah's side, into
re-conquered Jerusalem."

Lady Hester was now, after much persuasion,
induced to receive M. de Parseval, who had been
waiting for admission since the morning ; and they all
three returned to the same room, and smoked and
talked the greater part of the night. So dense
became the clouds of smoke that Lady Hester
appeared " seen through an atmosphere similar to the
atmosphere of invocations." On this occasion he
recounts chiefly his own share in the conversation —
far greater than I should imagine she would have
permitted him to engross ; among other things ex-
plaining, at some length, why he was neither an

286 CHARACTER READING [CH. VH

aristocrat nor a democrat. " Well, well ! let it be ! "
cried Lady Hester, when he had done ; "let me believe
you are an aristocrat, like myself; not one of those
young Frenchmen who raise the froth of popular
excitement against every institution ordained by God,
Nature, or society, and throw down the edifice, that
they may erect from its ruins a pedestal for their own
envious baseness." Then they talked politics.

" ' I have done with politics,' she declared ; ' I saw
enough of them during the ten (!) years I spent with
my uncle, Mr. Pitt, when all the intrigues of Europe
were at work around me. I despised humanity when
I was young ; I won't hear it spoken of now. All that
men do for other men is fruitless ; forms and methods
are indifferent to me. Goa and virtue are the
foundation of all.' . . . "Turning to lighter subjects,
and jesting on the kind of divination which enabled
her to discern men's characters at first sight by means
of their star, I put this power to the test, and
questioned her as to two or three travellers of my
acquaintance that had passed under her notice during
the last fifteen years. I was struck by the extreme
correctness of her impressions in the case of two of
these men. She analysed, with wonderful perspicacity
and intelligence, the character of one of them ; a
character difficult to understand at first sight ; of great
strength, veiled by an appearance of the simplest and
most engaging geniality ; and what put the climax to
my astonishment and most impressed me with ad-
miration of this woman's inflexible memory, was that
this traveller had only been with her for two hours,
and that sixteen years had elapsed from the time of
his visit when I enquired of her about him. Silence
concentrates and strengthens all the faculties of the
soul. Prophets, saints, great men, and poets, have all
marvellously apprehended this, and their instinct has

1830-1838] DJOUN 287

led them to seek the desert, or isolation from their
fellow-men.

" The name of Bonaparte occurred, as it usually
does, in conversation. ' I thought,' I said, ' that your
fanaticism for that man would be a barrier between
us.' 'I was only a fanatic,' she replied, ' in regard to
his misfortunes, and my pity for him.' . . . Thus the
night wore away in free discussion, without the least
affectation on Lady Hester's part, of any subjects that
suggested themselves in a desultory conversation.
I felt that no chord was wanting in that powerful and
lofty intellect, and that every note of the instrument
sounded true, full, and clear — except, perhaps, the
chord of metaphysics, which solitude and too high a
tension had falsified or raised to a pitch beyond the
sphere of human intelligence. We separated with
regrets, very sincere on my part, and obligingly
expressed on hers. ' No farewell,' she said ; ' we
shall often meet again in your travels, and other
travels that you do not yet even contemplate. Go
and rest, and remember that you have a friend in the
solitudes of the Lebanon.' She gave me her hand ; I
pressed mine to my heart, in Arab fashion, and we
parted."

Lady Hester appears to have been greatly amused
by Lamartine's little affectations and peculiarities, for
she often recurred to them, especially to his way of
calling her attention to his foot. " He pointed his
toes in my face," she declared, " and then turned to
his dog and kissed him, and held long conversations
with him. He thought to make a great effect when he
was here, but he was grievously mistaken. I gave him
a letter to Abu Ghosh, who received him very well ;
but when he talked about himself, and made out that
he was a great man, Abu Ghosh said it was for my
sake, and not for his own, that he showed him as
much honour as he could. . . . Think of him, getting

288 TOWER OF BABEL [CH. vn

off his horse half-a-dozen times to kiss his dog, and
take him out of his bandbox to feed him, on the road
from Beyrout here ; the very muleteers and servants
thought him a fool." She had, as will presently
appear (see p. 383), indulged herself by making a little
fun of him.

Djoun was at this time crowded with fugitives from
Acre. Lady Hester's hospitable gates were thrown
open to all, and within them alone security was to be
found ; for the whole country was terrorised by
Ibrahim Pacha. Among those she harboured were
some whose lives were forfeit, and he peremptorily
demanded their surrender. But he blustered and
threatened in vain. She sent him word that he must
take her own life first, for as long as the breath was
in her body the poor people that had sought her
protection should remain unmolested under her
roof.

" After the siege of Acre," she writes (the letter is
undated and without address, but must, I think, have
been to Lord Hardwicke), "which lasted seven
months (with an unremitted fire, even during the
nights), what remained of the wretched population
fled here. I alone dared to acknowledge them ; even
the prisoners of the Sultan's army (taken in the
neighbourhood of Hems and Hamar), when marched
by Sayda, were dying of thirst — neither Turk,
Christian, nor Frank would give them a glass of
water, all trembling before Ibrahim Pacha. These
unhappy people did not come to me, but I sent to
them.

" In three years my house was like the Tower of
Babel, filled as well as the village, with unhappy
people from Acre of all nations ; but, with the blessing
of God, I got through with it all, and was likewise
enabled to stand up alone before the attacks of all these
Pachas and rascally Consuls. By the determination
and presence of mind which I inherit, I have saved

1830-1838] DJOUN 289

many doomed to have their heads cut off; but, in
order not to commit the English name, I always said,
1 What I do, I do in my own name.' ... I have
deprived myself not only of the comforts, but of the
necessaries of life to relieve these people. I am sure that
you and Lady H. (granting her her mother's feelings)
will approve of what I have done. You may recollect
I told you old Suleiman Pacha treated me as his child.
Could I then see one of his wives — re-married to his
treasurer — come out here literally stripped to her
shift, and her husband's thighs and legs without skin
(they had been blown up with gunpowder), her poor
little naked child, her wretched attendants, her hus-
band's confidential servant, with both his eyes and
nose carried off by a ball — wandering about among
persons who were afraid to acknowledge them and
turned their backs upon them ? One of the Sultanas
has handsomely provided for this woman and her
children (for she increased her family while here) at
Constantinople. Another, one of the most respectable
families of Acre, composed of eighteen persons, being
all orphans and widows, without anybody to help
them except one poor boy of about fifteen, who had
nearly become idiotic from fright ; wounded Mame-
lukes and their families ; orphans and widows without
any resource whatever ; soldiers of all nations, some
wounded and some half naked. Look at the accuracy
of M. Lamartine ! I had seventy-five of them here at
the time that he paid me a visit, but I kept them out of
his sight (for his sentiment is all in his pen and not in
his heart). . . . Many of these people I have sent to
their country, others have been employed, and others
are all less or well provided for at this moment, thank
God ! I went through fatigue enough to kill a boats-
wain ; but whatever sacrifices I may have made of

20

29o THE REFORM BILL [CH. vn

money or health, I do not regret it. I should do the
same thing to-morrow, if circumstances called for
these exertions, in opposition to every one, and
certainly the broad-bottomed family " (Grenvilles)
" can have no right to blame me. What they did for
the King of France,1 and those that surrounded him, I
have done in my humble way, not for Abdalla Pacha
alone, as the world believes, but for humanity.
Ibrahim Pacha I admire infinitely more, being a
hero, and having several distinguished qualities ; but
as the war-agent of a tyrant who has presumed to
raise his arm against his master, I must be the enemy
of both, notwithstanding the kindness with which
Mehemet Ali formerly treated me, and the patience
Ibrahim Pacha has had with the violence I have often
demonstrated to his envoys, who never venture a
second time, for they always send a fresh one."

Though Lady Hester never read a newspaper, some
echoes of the Reform Bill agitation in England had
reached Syria.

" Had I been in England, and a man, I should have
fought more duels with Radicals than my cousin,
Lord Camelford. Every flower that grows upon his
tomb is a greater hero than they are — for the chief
cause of all their masquerading is fear — a fear of the
future; but it will all be of none avail. There are
few men more proud of their situations than many of
them are, or less willing to give up the advantages
arising from them. Were they raised to their situa-
tions by their own distinguished merits, or by the
favour of those whom they affect to despise, or, at

1 " The father of this Duke of Buckingham," she says in another
letter, " spent for the Bourbons, all the time they were in England,
,£25,000 a year.'1

1830-1838] DJOUN 291

least, treat without respect? Enfin, I shall shortly
expect to hear that some boatswain has given his
Captain a box on the ear, and that thanks have been
voted to him by the House of Commons."

We now come to the fascinating chapter in " Eothen "
that describes Mr. Kinglake's visit to Djoun. His
mother had known Lady Hester, in her old Somerset-
shire days, as " the intrepid girl that had been used
to break in her friends' vicious horses for them," now,
by a strange revulsion of fortune, " reigning in sove-
reignty over the wandering tribes of Western Asia !
... I never," he says, "had heard, nor indeed, I
believe, had the rest of the world ever heard, anything
like a certain account of the heroine's adventures, all
I knew was, that in one of the drawers, the delight
of my childhood, there were letters carefully treasured,
and trifling presents, which I was taught to think
valuable because they came from the Queen of the
Desert — a Queen who dwelt in tents and reigned over
wandering Arabs."

When he arrived at Beyrout he "felt at once that
my mother would be sorry to hear that I had been
within a day's ride of her old friend without offering
to see her, and I therefore despatched a letter to the
recluse, mentioning the maiden name of my mother
(whose marriage was subsequent to Lady Hester's
departure), and saying that if there existed on the part
of her Ladyship any wish to hear of her old Somerset-
shire acquaintance, I should make a point of calling
upon her."

The answer was a very kind invitation, brought by
Lunardi, who, with another man on horseback, both
of them covered with mud, "suddenly dashed into the
court of the little locanda where I was staying, bearing
themselves as ostentatiously as though they were
carrying a cartel from the devil to the angel Michael."
He named a day for his visit, but after all, " did not
start at the time fixed. Whilst still remaining at
Beyrout, I received another letter from Lady Hester ;
this I will give you, for it shows that whatever the
eccentricities of the writer may have been, she could
at least be thoughtful and courteous :

292 MR. KINGLAKE [CH. vn

" ' SIR, — I hope I shall be disappointed in seeing
you on Wednesday, for the late rains have rendered
the river Damoor, if not dangerous, at least very un-
pleasant to pass for a person who has been lately
indisposed, for, if the animal swims, you would be
immerged in the waters. The weather will probably
change after the 2ist of the moon, and after a couple
of days the roads and the river will be passable ; there-
fore, I shall expect you either Saturday or Monday.

" ' It will be a great satisfaction to me to have an
opportunity of inquiring after your mother, who was
a sweet, lovely girl when I knew her.
" ' Believe me, Sir,

" ' Yours sincerely,

" ' HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.'

" Early one morning I started from Beyrout. ... 1
left Sai'de (the Sidon of ancient times) on my right,
and about an hour, I think, before sunset, began to
ascend one of the many low hills of Lebanon. On
the summit before me was a broad grey mass of
irregular building, which, from its position, as well as
from the gloomy blankness of its walls, gave the idea
of a neglected fortress ; it had, in fact, been a convent
of great size, and, like most of the religious houses in
this part of the world, had been made strong enough
for opposing an inert resistance to any mere casual
band of assailants who might be unprovided with
regular means of attack ; this was the dwelling-place
of Chatham's fiery grand-daughter.

" The aspect of the first court I entered was such as
to keep one in the idea of having to do with a for-
tress, rather than a mere peaceable dwelling-place. A
number of fierce-looking and ill-clad Albanian soldiers
were hanging about the place inert, and striving, as

1830-1838] DJOUN 293

well as they could, to bear the curse oi tranquillity ;
two or three of them were smoking their tchibouques,
but the rest were lying torpidly upon the flat stones,
like the bodies of departed brigands. I rode on to an
inner part of the building, and at last, quitting my
horse, was conducted through a doorway that led me
at once from an open court into an apartment on the
ground-floor. As I entered, an Oriental figure in male
costume approached me from the further end of the
room, with many and profound bows ; but the growing
shades of evening prevented me from distinguishing
the features of the personage who was receiving me
with this solemn welcome. I had always, however,
understood that Lady Hester Stanhope wore the male
attire, and began to utter in English the common
civilities that seemed to be proper on the commence-
ment of a visit by an uninspired mortal to a renowned
prophetess; but the figure which I addressed only
bowed so much the more, prostrating itself almost to
the ground, but speaking to me never a word. I
feebly strived not to be outdone in gestures of respect ;
but presently my bowing opponent saw the error
under which I was acting, and suddenly convinced me
that at all events I was not yet in the presence of a
superhuman being, by declaring that he was far from
being ' Miladi,' and was, in fact, nothing more or less
godlike than the poor doctor who had brought his
mistress's letter to Beyrout.

" Lady Hester, in the right spirit of hospitality, now
sent and commanded me to repose for a while after
the fatigues of my journey, and to dine.

" The cuisine was of the Oriental kind — highly arti-
ficial, and, as I thought, very good. I rejoiced, too, in
the wine of the Lebanon.

"After dinner the doctor arrived with Miladi's

294 RESEMBLANCE TO CHATHAM [CH. VH

compliments, and an intimation that she would be
happy to receive me if I were so disposed. It had
now grown dark, and the rain was falling heavily, so
that I got rather wet in following my guide through
the open courts that I had to pass in order to reach
the presence-chamber. At last I was ushered into a
small chamber, protected from the draughts of air
passing through the doorway by a folding screen ;
passing this, I came alongside of a common European
sofa. There sat the Lady Prophetess. She rose from
her seat very formally— spoke to me a few words of
welcome, pointed to a chair — one already placed
exactly opposite to her sofa at a couple of yards'
distance — and remained standing up to the full of her
majestic height, perfectly still and motionless, until I
had taken my appointed place. She then resumed
her seat — not packing herself up according to the
mode of the Orientals, but allowing her feet to rest
on the floor or the footstool ; at the moment of seating
herself she covered her lap with a mass of loose, white
drapery. It occurred to me at the time that she did
this in order to avoid the awkwardness of sitting in
manifest trousers under the eye of a European ; but I
can hardly fancy now that, with her wilful nature, she
would have brooked such a compromise as this.

"The woman before me had exactly the person of
a prophetess — not, indeed, of the divine sibyl imagined
by Domenichino, so sweetly distracted betwixt love
and mystery, but of a good, business-like, practical
prophetess, long used to the exercise of her sacred
calling. I have been told by those who knew Lady
Hester Stanhope in her youth, that any notion of a
resemblance betwixt her and the great Chatham must
have been fanciful ; but at the time of my seeing her,
the large commanding features of the gaunt woman,

1830-1838] DJOUN 295

then sixty years old or more, certainly reminded me
of the statesman that lay dying in the House of Lords,
according to Copley's picture. Her face was of the
most astonishing whiteness; she wore a very large
turban, made seemingly of pale cashmere shawls, and
so disposed as to conceal the hair ; her dress, from the
chin down to the point at which it was concealed by
the drapery on her lap, was a mass of white linen
loosely folding — an ecclesiastical sort of affair — more
like a surplice than any of those blessed creations
which our souls love under the names of dress, and
1 frock,' and ' bodice,' and ' collar,' and ' habit-shirt,' and
sweet 'chemisette.'

" Such was the outward seeming of the personage
that sat before me ; and, indeed, she was almost bound,
by the fame of her actual achievements, as well as by
her sublime pretensions, to look a little differently
from the rest of womankind. There had been some-
thing of grandeur in her career. After the death of
Lady Chatham, which happened in 1803, she lived
under the roof of her uncle, the second Pitt, and when
he resumed the Government in 1804, she became the
dispenser of much patronage, and sole Secretary of
State for the department of Treasury banquets. Not
having seen the lady until late in her life, when she
was fired with spiritual ambition, I can hardly fancy
that she could have performed her political duties in
the saloons of the Minister with much of feminine
sweetness and patience. I am told, however, that she
managed matters very well indeed. Perhaps it was
better for the lofty-minded Leader of the House to
have his reception-rooms guarded by this stately
creature than by a merely clever and managing
woman ; it was fitting that the wholesome awe with
which he filled the minds of the country gentlemen

296 KINGLAKE'S " EOTHEN " [CH. vn

should be aggravated by the presence of his majestic
niece. But the end was approaching. The sun of
Austerlitz showed the Czar madly sliding his splendid
army, like a weaver's shuttle, from his right hand to
his left, under the very eyes — the deep, grey, watchful
eyes of Napoleon. Before night came the coalition
was a vain thing — meet for history ; and the heart of
its great author, when the terrible tidings came to
his ears, was wrung with grief — fatal grief. In the
bitterness of his despair, he cried out to his niece, and
bid her ' Roll up the map of Europe.' There was a
little more of suffering, and at last, with his swollen
tongue (so they say) still muttering something for
England, he died by the noblest of all sorrows.

" Lady Hester, meeting the calamity in her own
fierce way, seems to have scorned the poor island that
had not enough of God's grace to keep the ' heaven-
sent ' Minister alive. I can hardly tell why it should
be, but there is a longing for the East, very commonly
felt by proud people when goaded by sorrow. Lady
Hester Stanhope obeyed this impulse; for some time,
I believe, she was at Constantinople, and there her
magnificence, as well as her near alliance to the late
Minister, gained her great influence. Afterwards she
passed into Syria. The people of that country, excited
by the achievements of Sir Sidney Smith, had begun
to imagine the possibility of their land being occupied
by the English ; and many of them looked upon Lady
Hester as a princess who came to prepare the way
for the expected conquest I don't know it from her
own lips, or, indeed, from any certain authority, but
I have been told that she began her connection with
the Bedouins by making a large present of money
G£5oo — immense in piastres) to the sheik whose
authority was recognised in the desert, between

1830-1838] DJOUN 297

Damascus and Palmyra. The prestige created by the
rumours of her high and undefined rank, as well as of
her wealth and corresponding magnificence, was well
sustained by her imperious character and her dauntless
bravery. Her influence increased. I never heard
anything satisfactory as to the real extent or duration
of her sway, but I understood that, for a time at least,
she certainly exercised something like sovereignty
amongst the wandering tribes. And now that her
earthly kingdom had passed away, she strove for
spiritual power, and impiously dared, as it was said,
to boast some mystic union with the very God of
very God ! l

" A couple of black slave-girls came at a signal and
supplied their mistress, as well as myself, with lighted
tchibouques and coffee.

"The custom of the East sanctions, and almost
commands, some moments of silence whilst you are
inhaling the first few breaths of the fragrant pipe ;
the pause was broken, I think, . by my lady, who
addressed to me some enquiries respecting my mother,
and particularly as to her marriage ; but before I had
communicated any great amount of family facts, the
spirit of the prophetess kindled within her, and
presently (though with all the skill of a woman of
the world) she shuffled away the subject of poor,
dear Somersetshire, and bounded onward into loftier
spheres of thought.

11 My old acquaintance with some of ' the twelve '
enabled me to bear my part (of course a very humble
one) in a conversation relative to occult science.
Milnes once spread a report that every gang of gipsies
was found, upon inquiry, to have come last from a

1 This report was a gross calumny. There is no recorded word of
Lady Hester's that even hints at so monstrous a suggestion.

298 CLEARNESS OF VISION [CH. vn

place to the westward, and to be about to make the
next move in an eastern direction ; either, therefore,
they were to be all gathered together towards the
rising of the sun by the mysterious finger of Provi-
dence, or else they were to revolve round the globe
for ever and ever. Both of these suppositions were
highly gratifying, because they were both marvellous ;
and though the story on which they were founded
plainly sprang from the inventive brain of a poet, no
one had ever been so odiously statistical as to attempt
a contradiction of it. I now mentioned the story as
a report to Lady Hester Stanhope, and asked her it
it were true. I could not have touched upon any
imaginable subject more deeply interesting to my
hearer, more closely akin to her habitual train of
thinking; she immediately threw off all the restraint
belonging to an interview with a stranger ; and when
she had received a few more similar proofs of my
aptness for the marvellous, she went so far as to say
that she would adopt me as her eleve in occult science.

" For hours and hours this wondrous white woman
poured forth her speech, for the most part concerning
sacred and profane mysteries; but every now and
then she would stay her lofty flight and swoop down
upon the world again ; whenever this happened, I was
interested in her conversation.

" She adverted more than once to the period of her
lost sway amongst the Arabs, and mentioned some of
the circumstances that aided her in obtaining influence
with the wandering tribes. The Bedouin, so often
engaged in irregular warfare, strains his eyes to the
horizon in search of a coming enemy just as habitually
as the sailor keeps his ' bright look-out ' for a strange
sail. In the absence of telescopes, a far-reaching sight
is highly valued, and Lady Hester had this power.

1830-1838] DJOUN 299

She told me that, on one occasion, when there was
good reason to expect hostilities, a far-seeing Arab
created great excitement in the camp by declaring
that he could distinguish some moving objects upon
the very farthest point within the reach of his eyes.
Lady Hester was consulted, and she instantly assured
her comrades in arms that there were indeed a number
of horses within sight, but they were without riders.
The assertion proved to be correct, and from that time
forth her superiority over all others in respect of far
sight remained undisputed.

" Lady Hester related to me this other anecdote of
her Arab life. It was when the heroic qualities of the
Englishwoman were just beginning to be felt amongst
the people of the desert, that she was marching one
day along with the forces of the tribe to which she
had allied herself. She perceived that preparations
for an engagement were going on ; and upon her
making inquiry as to the cause, the sheik at first
affected mystery and concealment, but at last con-
fessed that war had been declared against his tribe on
account of his alliance with the English princess, and
that they were now unfortunately about to be attacked
by a very superior force. He made it appear that
Lady Hester was the sole cause of hostility be-
twixt his tribe and the impending enemy, and that
his sacred duty of protecting the Englishwoman whom
he had admitted as guest, was the only obstacle which
prevented an amicable settlement of the dispute. The
sheik hinted that his tribe was likely to sustain an
almost overwhelming blow, but at the same time
declared that no fear of the consequences, however
terrible to him and his whole people, should induce
him to dream of abandoning his illustrious guest.
The heroine instantly took her part; it was not for

300 LADY HESTER'S COURAGE [CH. vn

her to be a source of danger to her friends, but rather
to her enemies ; so she resolved to turn away from
the people, and trust for help to none save only her
haughty self. The sheiks affected to dissuade her
from so rash a course, and fairly told her that although
they (having been freed from her presence) would be
able to make good terms for themselves, yet that there
were no means of allaying the hostility felt towards
her, and that the whole face of the desert would be
swept by the horsemen of her enemies so carefully,
as to make her escape into other districts almost im-
possible. The brave woman was not to be moved by
terrors of this kind, and bidding farewell to the tribe
which had honoured and protected her, she turned
her horse's head and rode straight away, without
friend or follower. Hours had elapsed, and for some
time she had been alone in the centre of the round
horizon, when her quick eye perceived some horsemen
in the distance. The party came nearer and nearer;
soon it was plain that they were making towards
her, and presently some hundreds of Bedouins, fully
armed, galloped up to her, ferociously shouting, and
apparently intending to take her life at the instant
with their pointed spears. Her face at the time was
covered with the yashmak, according to Eastern
usage; but at the moment when the foremost of the
horsemen had all but reached her with their spears,
she stood up in her stirrups, withdrew the yashmak
that veiled the terrors of her countenance, waved her
arm slowly and disdainfully, and cried out with a loud
voice, ' Avaunt ! ' The horsemen recoiled from her
glance, but not in terror. The threatening yells of
the assailants were suddenly changed for loud shouts
of joy and admiration at the bravery of the stately
Englishwoman, and festive gun-shots were fired on all

1830-1838] DJOUN 301

sides around her honoured head, The truth was that
the party belonged to the tribe with which she had
allied herself, and that the threatened attack, as well
as the pretended apprehension of an engagement, had
been contrived for the mere purpose of testing her
courage. The day ended in a great feast, prepared to
do honour to the heroine ; and from that time her
power over the minds of the people grew rapidly.
Lady Hester related this story with great spirit, and
I recollect that she put up her yashmak for a moment,
in order to give me a better idea of the effect which
she produced by suddenly revealing the awfulness of
her countenance.

" With respect to her then present mode of life,
Lady Hester informed me that for her sin she had
subjected herself during many years to severe
penance, and that her self-denial had not been
without its reward. ' Vain and false,' said she, ' is all
the pretended knowledge of the Europeans ; their
doctors will tell you that the drinking of milk gives
yellowness to the complexion. Milk is my only food,
and you see if my face be not white.' Her abstinence
from food intellectual was carried as far as her
physical fasting ; she never, she said, looked upon a
book nor a newspaper, but trusted alone to the stars
for her sublime knowledge. She usually passed the
nights in communing with these heavenly teachers,
and lay at rest during the daytime. She spoke with
great contempt of the frivolity and benighted ignor-
ance of the modern Europeans, and mentioned, in
proof of this, that they were not only untaught in
astrology, but were unacquainted with the common
and everyday phenomena produced by magic art.
She spoke as if she would make me understand that
all sorcerous spells were completely at her command,

302 HIDDEN TREASURE ! [CH. vn

but that the exercise of such powers would be
derogatory to her high rank in the heavenly king-
dom. She said that the spell by which the face of
an absent person is thrown upon a mirror was within
the reach of the humblest and most contemptible
magicians, but that the practice of suchlike arts was
unholy as well as vulgar.

" We spoke of the bending twig by which, it is said,
precious metals may be discovered. In relation to
this, the prophetess told me a story rather against
herself, and inconsistent with the notion of her being
perfect in her science ; but I think that she mentioned
the facts as having happened before she attained to
the great spiritual authority which she now arro-
gated. She told me that vast treasures were known
to exist in a situation which she mentioned, if I rightly
remember, as being near Suez ; that Napoleon, pro-
fanely brave, thrust his arm into the cave containing
the coveted gold, and that instantly his flesh became
palsied. But the youthful hero (for she said he was
great in his generation) was not to be thus daunted ;
he fell back characteristically upon his brazen
resources, and ordered up his artillery. Yet man
could not strive with demons, and Napoleon was
foiled. In later years came Ibrahim Pacha, with
heavy guns, and wicked spells to boot ; but the
infernal guardians of the treasure were too strong
for him. It was after this that Lady Hester passed
by the spot, and she described with animated gesture
the force and energy with which the divining-twig
had suddenly leaped in her hands. She ordered
excavations, and no demons opposed her enterprise.
The vast chest in which the treasure had been
deposited was at length discovered, but lo, and
behold, it was full of pebbles ! She said, however,

1830-1838] DJOUN 303

that the times were approaching in which the hidden
treasures of the earth would become available to those
who had ' true knowledge.'

" Speaking of Ibrahim Pacha, Lady Hester said that
he was a bold, bad man, and was possessed of some of
those common and wicked magical arts, upon which
she looked down with so much contempt. She said,
for instance, that Ibrahim's life was charmed against
balls and steel, and that after a battle he loosened the
folds of his shawl, and shook out the bullets like
dust.

" It seems that the St. Simonians once made over-
tures to Lady Hester. She told me that the Pere
Enfantin (the chief of the sect) had sent her a service
of plate, but that she had declined to receive it. She
delivered a prediction as to the probability of the
St. Simonians finding the ' mystic mother,' and this
she did in a way which would amuse you. Unfortu-
nately, I am not at liberty to mention this part of the
woman's prophecies ; why, I cannot tell, but so it is,
that she bound me to eternal secrecy.

" Lady Hester told me that since her residence at
Djoun she had been attacked by an illness so severe
as to render her for a long time perfectly helpless.
All her attendants fled, and left her to perish. Whilst
she lay thus alone, and quite unable to rise, robbers
came and carried away her property. She told me
that they actually unroofed a great part of the
building, and employed engines with pulleys for the
purpose of hoisting out such of her valuables as were
too bulky to pass through doors. It would seem that
before this catastrophe Lady Hester had been rich in
the possession of Eastern luxuries ; for she told me
that, when the chiefs of the Ottoman force took refuge
with her after the fall of Acre, they brought their

304 AN OASIS [CH. vn

wives also in great numbers. To all of these Lady
Hester, as she said, presented magnificent dresses,
but her generosity occasioned strife only instead of
gratitude, for every woman who fancied her present
less splendid than that of another, with equal or less
pretension, became absolutely furious. All these
audacious guests had now been got rid of; but the
Albanian soldiers, who had taken refuge with Lady
Hester at the same time, still remained under her
protection.

" In truth, this half-ruined convent, guarded by the
proud heart of an English gentlewoman, was the only
spot throughout all Syria and Palestine in which the
will of Mehemet Ali and his fierce lieutenant was not
the law. More than once had the Pacha of Egypt
commanded that Ibrahim should have the Albanians
delivered up to him ; but this white woman of the
mountain (grown classical, not by books, but by very
pride) answered only with a disdainful invitation to
'come and take them.' Whether it was that Ibrahim
was acted upon by any superstitious dread of inter-
fering with the prophetess (a notion not at all incom-
patible with his character as an able Oriental
commander), or that he feared the ridicule of putting
himself in collision with a gentlewoman, he certainly
never ventured to attack the sanctuary ; and so long
as Chatham's grand-daughter breathed a breath of life,
there was always this one hillock, and that, too, in
the midst of a most populous district, which stood
out, and kept its freedom. Mehemet Ali used to say,
I am told, that the Englishwoman had given him
more trouble than all the insurgent people of Syria
and Palestine.

"The prophetess announced to me that we were
upon the eve of a stupendous convulsion which would

11830-1838] A PROPHECY FULFILLED 305

{destroy the then recognised value of all property upon
[earth ; and, declaring that those only who should be
Jin the East at the time of the great change could hope
[for greatness in the new life that was then close at
ihand, she advised me, whilst there was yet time, to
jdispose of my property in poor, frail England, and
?gain a station in Asia. She told me that, after leaving
'her, I should go into Egypt, but that in a little while
{I should return into Syria. I secretly smiled at this
•last prophecy as a ' bad shot,' because I had fully
'determined, after visiting the Pyramids, to take ship
Ifrom Alexandria for Greece. But men struggle
[vainly in the meshes of their destiny ! The unbelieved
jCassandra was right, after all. The plague came, and
^the necessity of avoiding the quarantine detention, to
[which I should have been subjected if I had sailed
from Alexandria, forced me to alter my route. I went
id own into Egypt, and stayed there for a time, and
then crossed the desert once more, and came back to the
mountains of the Lebanon, exactly as the prophetess
had foretold.

" Lady Hester talked to me long and earnestly on
the subject of religion, announcing that the Messiah
[was yet to come. She strived to impress me with the
i vanity and falseness of all European creeds, as well as
with a sense of her own spiritual greatness. Through-
out her conversation upon these high topics, she
carefully insinuated, without actually asserting, her
heavenly rank.

" Amongst other much more marvellous powers, the
lady claimed one which most women have more or
less — namely, that of reading men's characters in their
faces. She examined the line of my features very
attentively, and told me the result : this, however, I
mean to keep hidden.

21

3c6 LADY HESTER AS MIMIC [CH. v*i

" One favoured subject of discourse was that of
' race ' ; upon this she was very diffuse, and yet
rather mysterious. She set great value upon the
•ancient French, not Norman blood (for that she vilified),
but professed to despise our English notion of ' a!n old
family.' She had a vast idea of the Cornish miners, on
account of their race, and said, if she chose, she could
give me the means of rousing them to the most
•tremendous enthusiasm.

" Such are the topics on which the lady mainly
conversed ; but very often she would descend to moi
worldly chat, and then she was no longer the prc
phetess, but the sort of woman that you sometimes see,
I am told, in London drawing-rooms—cool, decisive
in manner, unsparing of enemies, full of audacious fun,
and saying the downright things that the sheepish
society around her is afraid to utter. 1 am told that
Lady Hester was, in her youth, a capital mimic, and
she showed me that not all the queenly dulness to
which she had condemned herself — not all her fasting
and solitude — had destroyed this terrible power. The
first whom she crucified in my presence was poor
Lord Byron. She had seen him, it appeared, 1 know
not where, soon after his arrival in the East, and was
vastly amused at his little affectations. He had picked
up a few sentences of the Romaic, and with these he
affected to give orders to his Greek servant in a ton
cf apameibomenos style. I can't tell you whether Lady
Hester's mimicry of the bard was at all close, but it
was amusing ; she attributed to him a curiously cox-
comical lisp.

"Another person, whose style of speaking the lady
took off very amusingly, was one who would scarcely
object to suffer by the side of Lord Byron — I mean
Lamartine. The peculiarity which attracted her ridi-

1830-1838] VITUPERATION AS A FINE ART 307

cule was an over-refinement of manner. According
to my lady's imitation of Lamartine (I have never
seen him myself), he had none of the violent grimace
of his countrymen, and not even their usual way of
talking, but rather bore himself mincingly, like the
humbler sort of English dandy.

" Lady Hester seems to have heartily despised
everything approaching to exquisiteness. She told me,
by-the-bye (and her opinion upon that subject is worth
having), that a downright manner, amounting even to
brusqueness, is more effective than any other with
the Oriental; and that amongst the English, of all
ranks and all classes, there is no man so attractive
to the Orientals — no man who can negotiate with
them half so effectively — as a good, honest, open-
hearted, and positive naval officer of the old school.

" 1 have told you, I think, that Lady Hester could
deal fiercely with those she hated. One man above all
others (he is now uprooted from society) she blasted
with her wrath ; you would have thought that in the
scornfulness of her nature she must have sprung upon
her foe with more of fierceness than of skill. But this
was not so, for with all the force and vehemence of
her invective, she displayed a sober, patient, and
minute attention to the details of vituperation, which
contributed to its success a thousand times more than
mere violence.

" During the hours that this sort of conversation, or
rather discourse, was going on, our tchibouques were
from time to time replenished, and the lady, as well as
I, continued to smoke with little or no intermission
till the interview ended. I think that the fragrant
fumes of the Latakiah must have helped to keep me
on my good behaviour as a patient disciple of the
prophetess.

308 LADY HESTER'S SECRETARY [CH. VH

" It was not till after midnight that my visit for the
evening came to an end. When I quitted my seat the
lady rose, and stood up in the same formal attitude
(almost that of a soldier in a state of attention) which
she had assumed on my entrance; at the same time
she pushed the loose drapery from her lap, and let it
fall down upon the floor.

" The next morning after breakfast I was visited by
my lady's secretary — the only European, except the
doctor, «whom she retained in her household. This
secretary, like the doctor, was Italian, but he preserved
more signs of European dress and European preten-
sions than his medical fellow-slave. He spoke little or
no English, though he wrote it pretty well, having been
formerly employed in a mercantile house connected
with England. The poor fellow was in an unhappy
state of mind. In order to make you understand the
extent of his spiritual anxieties, I ought to have told
you that the doctor (who had sunk into the complete
Asiatic, and had condescended accordingly to the
performance of even menial services) had adopted the
common faith of all the neighbouring people, and had
become a firm and happy believer in the divine power
of his mistress. Not so the secretary. When I had
strolled with him to such a distance from the building
as rendered him safe from being overheard by human
ears, he told me in a hollow voice, trembling with
emotion, that there were times at which he doubted
the divinity of Miladi. I said nothing to encourage
the poor fellow in his frightful state of scepticism, for
I saw that, if indulged, it might end in positive in-
fidelity. Lady Hester, it seemed, had rather arbitrarily
abridged the amusements of her secretary ; and especi-
ally she had forbidden him from shooting small birds
on the mountain-side. This oppression had aroused

1830-1838] DJOUN 309

in him a spirit of inquiry that might end fatally — per-
haps for himself — perhaps for the ' religion of the
place.'

" The secretary told me that his mistress was
strongly disliked by the surrounding people, and that
she oppressed them a good deal by her exactions.
I know not whether this statement had any truth in
it ; but whether it was or was not well founded, it is
certain that in Eastern countries hate and veneration
are very commonly felt for the same object, and the
general belief in the superhuman power of this
wonderful white lady — her resolute and imperious
character, and above all, perhaps, her fierce Albanians
(not backward to obey an order for the sacking of a
village)— inspired sincere respect amongst the sur-
rounding inhabitants. Now the being ' respected '
amongst Orientals is not an empty or merely honorary
distinction, but carries with it a clear right to take
your neighbour's corn, his cattle, his eggs, and his
honey, and almost anything that is his, except his wives.
This law was acted upon by the Princess of Djoun,
and her establishment was supplied by contributions
apportioned amongst the nearest of the villages.

" I understood that the Albanians (restrained, I
suppose, by the dread of being delivered up to
Ibrahim) had not given any very troublesome proofs
of their unruly natures. The secretary told me that
their rations, including a small allowance of coffee
and tobacco, were served out to them with tolerable
regularity.

" I asked the secretary how Lady Hester was off for
horses, and said that I would take a look at the stables.
The man did not raise any opposition to my proposal,
and affected no mystery about the matter, but said
that the only two steeds which then belonged to

3io VARIED DISCOURSE [CH. vn

Miladi were of a very humble sort. This answer, and
a storm of rain then beginning to descend, prevented
me at the time from undertaking my journey to the
stables, and I don't know that I ever thought of the
matter afterwards, until my return to England, when
I saw Lamartine's eye-witnessing account of the
strange horse saddled, as he pretends, by the hands of
his Maker!

11 When I returned to my room (this, as my hostess
told me, was the only one in the whole building that
kept out the rain), Lady Hester sent to say she would
be glad to receive me again. I was rather surprised at
this, for I had understood that she reposed during the
day, and it was now little later than noon. ' Really,'
said she, when I had taken my seat and my pipe, ' we
were together for hours last night, and still I have
heard nothing at all of my old friends ; now, do tell
me something of your dear mother, and her sister ;
I never knew your father — it was after I left Burton
Pynsent that your mother married.' 1 began to make
slow answer; but my questioner soon went off again
to topics more sublime ; so that this second interview,
though it lasted two or three hours, was all occupied
by the same sort of varied discourse as that which
I have been describing.

" In the course of the afternoon the captain of an
English man-of-war arrived at Djoun, and Lady Hester
determined to receive him for the same reason as that
which had induced her to allow my visit — namely, an
early intimacy with his family. I and the new visitor
— he was a pleasant, amusing man— dined together,
and we were afterwards invited to the presence of my
Lady, and with her we sat smoking till midnight. The
conversation turned chiefly, I think, upon magical
science. I had determined to be off at any early hour

1830-1838] DJOUN 311

the next morning, and so at the end of this interview
I bade my Lady farewell. With her parting words
she once more advised me to abandon Europe, and
seek my reward in the East ; and she urged me too to
give the like counsels to my father, and tell him that
4 she had said it'

" Lady Hester's unholy claim to supremacy in the
spiritual kingdom was, no doubt, the suggestion of
fierce and inordinate pride most perilously akin to
madness ; but I am quite sure that the mind of the
woman was too strong to be thoroughly overcome by
even this potent feeling. I plainly saw that she was
not an unhesitating follower of her own system ;
and I even fancied that I could distinguish the brief
moments during which she contrived to believe in
herself, from those long and less happy intervals in
which her own reason was too strong for her.

" As for the lady's faith in astrology and magic
science, you are not for a moment to suppose that
this implied any aberration of intellect. She believed
these things in common with those around her; and
it could scarcely be otherwise, for she seldom spoke
to anybody except crazy old dervishes who at once
received her alms and fostered her extravagances ;
and even when (as on the occasion of my visit) she
was brought into contact with a person entertaining
different notions, she still remained uncontradicted.
This entourage, and the habit of fasting from books and
newspapers, were quite enough to make her a facile
recipient of any marvellous story."

For some reason or other, Mr. Kinglake was not
allowed to see either her garden or her famous
mares.

In the summer of 1836 we find poor Lady Hester
once more the victim of a hoax. This time she {iacl

3i2 ANOTHER HOAX [CH. vn

inherited an estate in Ireland, the knowledge of
which was kept from her by interested persons. It
was quite true that a Colonel Needham had be-
queathed his estate to Mr. Pitt, who died before him,
and that it then devolved on Lord Kilmorey, as his
heir-at-law. She was now assured that Lord Kil-
morey, dying childless, had felt bound to carry out
the Colonel's wishes regarding this estate, and had
therefore bequeathed it to her as Mr. Pitt's heir. Who
but Lady Hester would have been imposed upon by
such a tale ? yet she believed it implicitly, and believed
it to her dying day. She wrote at once to ask her
friend M. Guys to come to her.

" Very extraordinary circumstances have come to
my knowledge which I cannot communicate to you by
letter. ... I should like to have an opportunity of
profiting by your counsel touching certain things
somewhat incredible, which have been twice repeated
to me by persons much attached to me, but who are
not desirous of being known."

This friend was the French Consul at Beyrout, who
appears to have been of the greatest service to her,
taking the place of his English colleague, with whom
she would have nothing to do. Several of her letters
to him are given in the " Memoirs," but they are chiefly
on business. In one she says :

"God grant that the time may come when I shall
have it in my power to return you, in some shape, a
small measure only of the politeness and attention I
have received from you. ... I will send you back the
book (' Voyage en Orient ').... Half of what the
writer says is false. Before I went to Palmyra I made
an excursion into the desert with Lascaris alone,
keeping the doctor and the married servants, under
one pretext or another, from accompanying me.
Lascaris and I were pursued by the Fedaan Bedouins,
who were hostile to Mohammed el Fadl, and although

1830-1838] DJOUN 313

our horses never drank for two days, we rode from ten
in the morning until after midnight without eating or
drinking to get out of their district. Then, again, the
dispute between Lascaris and me was about a groom,
who, not knowing who he was, would not let him
enter my stables at Hamah. His pride would not
stop to listen to reason, and he ran away. I met him
several years after at Tripoli, and he made me cry for
an hour by the excess of his grief and the excuses
which he made me — so much so that I, who hardly
ever shed tears, was astonished at myself. Poor man !
There indeed was a true courtier, with the most
elegant manners and an inconceivable fund of know-
ledge, without pedantry. It was not Napoleon that
he was so much attached to, it was to him who had
the portefeuille. You know very well what he did for
him." i

She also wrote to Lord Hardwicke, " a man who
has rendered me one thousand services without ever
having made them known to me, but chance has
brought them to my knowledge," asking him to
enquire about her Irish estate. A vain quest indeed !
Then she summons back the doctor.

Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon

"August 2ist, 1836.

" I hope I shall not claim in vain the assistance of
an old friend, at the moment I most require one I can
depend upon, to settle the business of my debts, &c.,
now made public. Money has been left to me which

1 This Lascaris, a Piedmontese by birth, was a former Knight of
Malta, who had followed Napoleon to Egypt, and been sent by him to
explore the route to India, where he then thought of going. Lascaris
spent seven years in wandering, under various disguises, among the
wild tribes of Mesopotamia and the banks of the Euphrates, feigning
a sort of monomania to account for his movements. But when he
brought back the result of his researches, he found his labour had
been in vain, for the Emperor was no longer on the throne, and re-
turning discouraged to the East, died at Cairo, poor, neglected, and
unknown.

3i4 EFFECT OF LAMARTINE'S BOOK [CH. vn

has been concealed from me. I could hardly at first
believe it until I was assured of it by a young lawyer
who had the fact from one of my Irish relations. I
should wish you to come as soon as you can possibly
make it convenient to yourself, and return when the
business is over. . . . An English traveller, who has
written, as I am informed, a very learned work, told a
person that when M. Lamartine's book first came out in
England the impression was so strong, that many
people who did not personally know me talked of
coming here to investigate my affairs and to offer their
services, but that they were prevented. A woman
of high rank and good fortune " (Baroness de Feriat)
"who has built herself a palais in a remote part of
America, has announced her intention of passing the
rest of her life with me, so much has she been struck
with my situation and conduct. She is nearly of my
age ; and thirty-seven or thirty-eight years ago — I
being personally unknown to her — was so taken with
my general appearance, that she never could divest
herself of the thoughts of me, which have ever since
pursued her. At last, informed by M. Lamartine's
book where I was to be found, she took this extra-
ordinary determination, and in the spring I expect her.
She is now selling her large landed estate, preparatory
to her coming. She, as well as Leila, the mare, is in
the prophecy " (see p. 210). "The beautiful boy has
also written, and is wandering over the face of the
globe, till destiny marks the period of our meeting.

" I have heard of your situation, and it pains me
beyond expression.1 Here you might, I believe, have
been happy, and I also comfortable, as I have confi-

1 "I understand," she writes to M. Guys, "that the doctor's cir-
cumstances are not very flourishing. Poor man ! let him take courage ;
he shall be better— ay, shall be well off, when I have just put dowa
those . . ,"

1830-1838] LUNARDI 315

dence in your integrity ; and, whilst you were regu-
lating all as I should have wished, you would have
pursued those avocations most pleasing to your taste.
What advice can I give you that I have not already
given fifty times ?

11 Of myself, I can say but little that is amusing ;
for, from the time the Egyptian troops entered this
country till now, I have been in hot water. After the
siege, all that remained of the wretched population
fled here. ... It was only at the beginning of this
year that I got rid of a family of eighteen persons, all
orphans and widows. ... I had, at one time, seventy-
five coverlets out for strangers — chiefly soldiers — the
village full of families, and those at Sayda and other
places coming and going for a little money to buy their
daily bread.

" I have saved many lives by my energy and
determination, and have stood alone in such a storm !
All trembled, Franks as much as the rest ; and if they
pretended to act with a little spirit, they were sure to
have folly and not justice on their side, and to be at
last forced to give in. But the most of them joined,
heart and hand, with the usurpers, whom I have
treated without mercy, and in the end carried all
before me. God helped me in all ; for, otherwise, I
never could have got through with it, having no one
of any sort of use to me.

" Lunardi, Mr. Webb's man, whom you so strongly
recommended to me, turned himself into a doctor, and
was too much taken up with his new title to be of
any use to me ; yet, this useless Lunardi is a good-
hearted fellow. Were you to see him now, however,
you would hardly know him, his manners are so
improved, as well as his understanding. I believe,
also, that he is attached to me.

3i6 LADY HESTER'S HEALTH [CH. vu

" Anxiety, agitation, and fatigue, together with the
violent passions I sometimes put myself in, caused me,
only a year ago, to vomit blood enough several times
to kill a horse. In seven days it stopped, but yet I
was obliged to be bled eleven times in four months
and a half, fearing a return. Yesterday I was
working like a fellah " (labourer) " in my garden.
I am very thin, but contented about my health,
as this gives proof of my natural strength. With
the blood running out of my mouth, I was col-
lected enough to give orders respecting a man who,
if he had been caught, would have lost his head;
and no soul in the family knew of this but one,
who insisted on seeing me in the state I was in ; and
although I could hardly speak, I reflected much, and—
thank God ! — settled all to my satisfaction. . . . Do
not be uneasy about my health, for an English medical
man, who came here after my illness, said he never
saw such a constitution in his life, and that my pulse
then was a better pulse than his.

" I am reckoned here the first politician in the world,
and by some a sort of prophet. Even the Emir
(Beshyr) wonders, and is astonished ; for he was not
aware of this extraordinary gift formerly ; but yet all
say — I mean enemies — that I am worse than a lion
when in a passion, and that they cannot deny I have
justice on my side. . . .

" P." (an Italian) " has gambled away nearly five
hundred dollars I gave him about four years ago
for things that I wanted, and never sent me any-
thing." . . .

She gives him a list of commissions — such a pitiful
list ! — showing her need of the commonest necessaries.

" I want for myself six cups and saucers ; the

1830-1838] LADY HESTER'S REQUIREMENTS 317

top, I think, four inches in diameter, height, two
inches. I had a cup I was so fond of, for tea and
coffee tasted so good out of it ! It was strong and
good china, but it is gone, and one cup held enough
for my breakfast — a moderate cup and a half. I
want also a teapot, black or red, which you like ; two
cream jugs, four milk jugs, in case two are broken
(being always in use) ; six plates, four glass things,
for butter and honey; a toast rack— not plated, a
plated one for strangers ; a dozen basins, some little
phials and corks, a few common candlesticks (brass or
something strong), a few common entangling combs,
a few scrubbing brushes for the kitchen — that is all.

" The little black is not twelve years old, yet she
does my bedroom, and answers the bell ; she is the
only good-tempered black I have seen, so I try to
please her, poor thing ! If you come, I should there-
fore wish (if not too expensive) that you should bring,
as an encouragement, a pair of earrings, a string of
beads, a pair of bracelets, and a thimble.

" I do not want any books, having no one to read to
me ; it even puts my eyes out to write this."

The Baroness de Feriat, whom Lady Hester ex-
pected in the spring, represented in her eyes " the
woman from a far country " of the prophecy, who
was to come and " partake of the mission." She
never came, and I fear she too was a fraud. But
why did she announce herself? What possible motive
could she have had in making so extraordinary a pro-
posal? There was nothing whatever to be gained
by it, except, perhaps, notoriety, and the love of
notoriety leads people to do strange things. On the
other hand, how could Lady Hester welcome such a
prospect? The coming of an unknown woman to
remain with us for the rest of her life, would fill
most of us with dismay. To her it was but the ful-
filment of prophecy, a part of her appointed destiny,
and she was pleased and interested. " I fancy," she

3i8 DR. MERYON RETURNS [CH. vn

writes, " Madame de Feriat must be a woman quite
unique." She was, as usual, persuaded that it was
all true, and that the rich lady from a remote part
of America was really coming ; and, in perfectly good
faith, set about looking for a house for her, and
preparing and decorating it. " For the divan-room I
should like ornaments of a musical character, for she
seems to be very fond of music and of the fine arts."

The " beautiful boy " without a father, I am sorry to
say, is never mentioned again.

Dr. Meryon responded to her summons in the
following year, and duly arrived at Beyrout on July
ist, 1837, bringing with him — much against Lady
Hester's wishes — his wife, his daughter Eugenia, and
Eugenia's governess. Their coming was singularly
unwelcome to her, and she did not scruple to tell
him so.

" I could wish you," she writes, " first of all, to come
here alone, to see a house at Sayda for your family,
and for us to well understand one another before
you bring them here. For your sake, I should
always wish to show civility to all who belong to :
you ; but caprice I will never interfere with, for, from
my early youth, I have been taught to despise it. ...
I hope your health is quite recovered, and, in the end,
that you will have no reason to regret your voyage."

This time, then, there was to be no friendly recep-
tion, no robing of the honoured guest ; Mrs. Meryon
was to be kept at arm's length ; and, ungracious and
unkind as Lady Hester's decision appears, there is
something to be said in favour of its wisdom. She
wished, if possible, to avoid all friction — at any rate,
all discussion ; and to guard herself against a recur-
rence of the state of things that had existed six years
before. And in this she was to a great extent
successful. She was not, however, unmindful of Mrs.
Meryon's comfort, for she sent one of her servants to
attend upon her, as well as mules for the whole party
and their luggage. The doctor, disregarding her
request, brought them on at once to Sayda, where he

1830-1838] GENERAL lOUSTANEAtr 319

found that an earthquake, six months Ibfefore, had
cracked or thrown down more 'than toailf <the houses,
and the French Consul <!ould <©n!ly 'offer them his
garden, in which to .pitch ifcheir tent. Dr. Meryon
himself went on to Djoun, ;ain<fl returning the next day,
found his family bathed in tears. The night before, a
deserter, trying to ihide ihimself in the Consular garden,
had appeared atttbe^ent door. Mrs. Meryon's shrieks
roused the w^hole household, and the French ladies
had vainly endeavoured to convince her there was no
danger ; she insisted on being taken away at once.
The doctor, at his wits' end, bethought himself of Mar
Elias, Lady Hester's former home, which she still
retained, and where, though this building, too, had
suffered greatly in the earthquake, they found ample
accommodation. One of the rooms was occupied by
the crazy French prophet, General Loustaneau, now
nearly eighty-two, and living, as he had done for
twenty years past, on Lady Hester's bounty.

" He had a maid-servant to take care of him ; a
barber, on fixed days, to shave him. Lamb, mutton,
or beef, flour for his bread, and wine, were sent as his
consumption required, money being liberally furnished
him for purchasing everything else from Sayda."

The doctor found that the woman in charge
neglected the poor old man, and told Lady Hester so.
The next morning he found —

"An extraordinary display on the floor of her bed-
room. ' See,' she said, ' what I am reduced to !
Ever since daylight this morning ' (it was then
noon) ' have I been handling pots and pans to make
the Prophet comfortable. For on whom can I de-
pend ? — on these cold people ? A pack of stocks and
stones, who rest immovable amidst their fellow-
creature's sufferings! Why did you not give that
woman a dressing? I'll have her turned out of the
village — an impudent hussy ! '

320 " UNMANAGEABLE— THAT'S ME!" [CH. vn

" Here, from having raised her voice, she was seized
with a spasm in the throat and chest, and, with a
sudden start, ' Some water, some water ! make haste ! '
she cried, and gasped for breath as if almost suffo-
cated. I handed her some immediately, which she
greedily drank. I then threw the window open, and
she became better. ' Don't leave me, doctor, ring the
bell : I can't bear to be left alone a moment, for if one
of these attacks were to comet on, and I could not ring
the bell, what could I do ? You must forgive me if I
fall into these violent passions, but such is my nature,
I can't help it. I am like the horse Mr. Pitt had. Mr.
Pitt used to say, " You can guide him with a hair ; if
I only move my leg he moves on, and his pace is so
easy, it's quite charming ; but if you thwack him or
contradict him, he is unmanageable " — that's me ! "

These sudden attacks, with a throttling sense of
suffocation, which, as she described it, was like the
gripe of a hand upon her throat, seemed to the doctor
symptoms of water in the chest, and made him very
uneasy. She had long suffered from a chronic cough,
that subsided during the summer months, returning
with increased violence every winter; and she was
in a state of complete emaciation, having been, for
the last twenty years, regularly bled four or five
times a year. She would seldom or never take his
advice, for she prescribed almost entirely for herself,
and —

" Had peculiar systems, drawn from the doctrine of
other people's star. Such is the state of the balmy
air in Syria, that, had she trusted to its efficacy alone,
and lived with habits of life like other people, nothing
serious was to be dreaded from her illness. But she
never breathed the external air, except what she got
by opening the windows, and took no exercise, but
for about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour daily,

1830-1838] DJOUN 321

when, on quitting her bedroom to go to the saloon,
she took two or three turns in her garden to see her
flowers and shrubs, which seemed to be the greatest
amusement she had."

On October 2$th of this year, she had to take to her
bed, and did not leave it again till the following
March.

It was more owing to the state of her health than
from any disinclination to receive visitors, that, in the
latter years of her life, she habitually closed her doors
against them. She often bitterly regretted that she
was unable to see them, as nothing pleased her better
than to hold forth on " sublime subjects," to which —
fortunately for himself — she considered the doctor
unsuited. Sometimes, too, it was from actual want of
funds.

" How many times," she said, " have I been abused
by the English when I did not deserve it, and for
nothing so much as for not seeing people, when
perhaps it was quite out of my power ! There was
Mr. Anson, and Mr. Strangways, who, because I
refused to see them, sat down under a tree, and wrote
me such a letter ! Little did they know that I had not
a bit of barley in the house for their horses, and
nothing for their dinner. I could not tell them so ; but
they might have had feeling enough to suppose it was
not without some good reason that I declined their
visit. Many a pang has their ill-nature given me, as
well as that of others. I have the note still some-
where."

On more than one occasion she entertained guests
whom she was unable to see, as in the case of Mr.
Foster and Mr. Knox. She found that the former was
the relation of Sir Augustus, our minister at Turin,
and bade the doctor —

" Go instantly to him, for Sir Augustus is an old

22

322 HOSPITALITY MADE DIFFICULT [CH. vn

friend of mine. Be particularly attentive to Mr. Foster
— indeed, to both of them. Tell them I am very sorry
I can't see them ; for when I get into conversation I
become animated, and then I feel the effects of it
afterwards ; but assure them they are welcome to
make their home of their present lodging for a couple
of days or a couple of hours — as long as they
like. . . . Go, go! and make them as comfortable as
you can."

It is easy enough to entertain guests when all that
is required is to give the necessary orders ; poor Lady
Hester had to practise hospitality under far different
conditions. For her it entailed endless worry and
trouble. She had to contrive and consider how it was
possible to furnish them with a decent dinner. The
doctor told her he had seen the cook, and made out
the best bill of fare he could. " But now," she said,
"what can be got for their dejeuner a la fourchettel
— for there is nothing in the house. Ah, yes ! let me
see — there is a stew of yesterday's that I did not
touch ; that may be warmed up again, and some
potatoes added ; and then you must taste that wine
that came yesterday from Garyfy, to see if you think
they will like it. The spinach my maid must do — I
have taught ZezefOon to do it very well." Here she
rang for Zezef6on, and gave directions for the
spinach, adding : " The strangers must have some of
my butter and some of my bread. Likewise give out
the silver spoons, and knives and forks ; they are
under that cushion on the ottoman there ; and mind
you count them when you give them to Mohammed,
or they will steal one, and dispute with you afterwards
about their number — a pack of thieves!" Mr. Foster
asked for a glass of lemonade. Little could he have
imagined the commotion caused by this modest request.
"Lemonade!" cried Lady Hester; "why, the maid
said the secretary had been to ask for some violet
syrup for them ; now, which is it they want ? And
then, who is there can make lemonade? — not a soul
but myself in the whole house ; and poor I am obliged
to wear out my little strength in doing the most trivial

1830-1838] LADY HESTER'S VISITORS 323

offices. Here I am — I wanted to write another letter
to go by the steamboat, and now all my thoughts are
driven out of my head. Zezefoon ! order the gardener
to bring me four or five of the finest lemons on the
tree near the alley of roses— you know where I mean
—and prepare a tray with glasses." And Lady Hester
was presently sitting up in bed to squeeze lemons
for the lemonade. She, who maintained so many
pensioners and retainers, apparently made but scant
provision for herself.

She named to the doctor some of the visitors she
had received during the past years ; apparently there
were but few ; and in most cases he gives only their
initials. Besides Captain Pechell and Captain Yorke,
both of whom "she liked and thought clever men,"
there were the Due de Richelieu, " more like a militia
officer than a French duke," a "sensible Scotchman,"
Mr. Dundas (during whose visit the girl Fatoom picked
her pocket of her keys, ransacked her cupboards, and
carried off all that was worth having), Count Delaborde,
Dr. Mills, Count de la Porte, Lord St. Asaph (afterwards
Earl of Ashburnham), &c., &c. " Did Lord St. Asaph
publish anything?" she once asked. "He was very
active, and went about seeking for antiquities every-
where ; whenever he heard of anything, off he set, and
visited it. When he saw my garden he expressed
great admiration of it, and assured me that it was not
only well kept for this country, but better kept than
many a gentleman's grounds in England."

About two months after his arrival, clouds began to
appear on the doctor's domestic horizon. Mrs. Meryon
took a dislike to Mar Elias, refused to remain there,
and wished Lady Hester to provide them with a house
at Dar Joon, nearer at hand, where her husband might
spend his evenings with her. This Lady Hester
declined to do ; she said a house must be sought for
elsewhere, and ignored her claims to her husband's
society. She was not, as we have seen, partial to her
own sex ; there were very few women she really liked,
and Mrs. Meryon certainly was not one of them.

" Women," she would say, " must be one of three
things. Either they are politicians and literary char-
acters ; or they must devote their time to dress,

324 LADY HESTER ON HUSBANDS [CH. vn

pleasure, and love; or, lastly, they must be fond of
domestic affairs. I do not mean by ' domestic affairs '
a woman who sits working at her needle, scolding
a couple of children, and sending her maid next door to
the shop for all she wants ; there is no trouble in that.
What I mean is a yeoman's wife, who takes care of
the butter and cheese, sees the poultry yard attended
to, and looks to her husband's comfort and interest.
As for the advantage of passing your evenings with
your family, which you urge as a reason for having
them near you, all sensible men that I have ever heard
of take their meals with their wives, and then retire to
their own room, to read, write, or do what they have
to do, or what best pleases them. If a man is a fox-
hunter, he goes and talks with his huntsman or the
grooms, and very good company they are ; if he is a
tradesman, he goes into his shop ; if a doctor, to his
patients ; but nobody is such a fool as to moider away
his time in the slip-slop conversation of a pack of
women."

On further reflection, however, she felt that she had
no right, for the sake of her own affairs and her
personal convenience, to retain the doctor in a position
of constraint and discomfort. She wrote to him (he
was then laid up with a bad leg) as follows :

Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon

" DJOUN,

" September 23^, 1837.

" Whilst waiting for M. Guys' answer, I have some
remarks to make, worthy of your attention. I do not
speak in wrath, my dear doctor, but I do not see how,
at this period, you are to help yourself; and it is plain
to perceive that you will not be able in any way to
accomplish the objects you came for. Therefore, I
should deem it an act of folly to stick you up as

1830-1838] DJOUN 325

a sort of Maskera " (show) " in the public eye at
Beyrout, merely to write a few letters. The whole
of my business M. Guys offered to undertake before
I sent for you, and to come here and write for me ;
but I had reasons for wishing you to come, which no
longer exist ; for under no circumstances do I see that
you would be comfortable near me, nor should I wish
it, either at present or in future. Therefore, if you
like to pass the winter at Cyprus, where, perhaps,
you would be more comfortable than at Beyrout, you
are at full liberty to do so. When my affairs are
settled, you might then, if Cyprus pleases you, pur-
chase a little terro there, or return to Europe, as you
like best.

" I am very glad that you wrote to M. Guys
yourself; for I had described a country house near
some village, and you have described a sort of coffee-
house near the gate of the town. You talked to me of
Mrs. M.'s great love of retirement (which I laughed
at, at the time), and therefore she chooses a house on
the high road. But leave all that childish, vulgar stuff.
I do not wish for a hasty answer, as this subject
requires reflection. Try and make yourself comfort-
able, and I shall find means of settling my business to
my satisfaction ; only I must have a clear and distinct
answer, that I may make arrangements accordingly.
. . . Do not fidget yourself about me. I have made
many awful sacrifices in my life, surely I can make a
small one, when I know what it is."

The doctor, however, would not accept his dismissal,
for he did not wish to go. He was busily employed,
little as she suspected it, in collecting materials for. the
" Memoirs." Matters were arranged, a house was
found that satisfied Mrs. Meryon, and all went on
as before.

3z6 DR. MERYON'S INACCURACIES [CH. vn

In offering to part with the doctor, Lady Hester was
really making a sacrifice, and in more respects than
one, her greatest pleasure was to hear him read aloud
the books she was debarred from reading herself.
They were generally Memoirs (Sir Nathaniel Wraxall,
Lady Charlotte Bury, etc.), recalling old scenes and
former friends and acquaintances, and whenever a
familiar name occurred, she launched forth into reminis-
cences and anecdotes. These the doctor collected
for his book, furnishing us with a vast amount of
gossip, besides a great deal of rambling and random
talk on every subject under the sun. Nor does he
omit the various scoldings, lectures, and snubbings of
which he was the recipient, and they were many and
grievous. Of the anecdotes, I have only given two or
three she tells of herself in early days, and even these
with doubt and misgivings, for such of these stories
as I have been able to test I have invariably found in-
correct. Her memory had become more and more
treacherous and confused, and was quite unreliable ;
she evidently often gave the wrong names, jumbled
together different events, distorted and exaggerated
others, and was altogether oblivious of dates. The
two years she had spent with Mr. Pitt became ten.
The doctor, too, though he tells us he often wrote
down what he had heard as soon as he got home,
probably made a great many mistakes. She says in
one of her letters (see p. 414) that he constantly made
mischief by his want of accuracy, and even a scrupu-
lously exact man would have found it difficult, not to say
impossible, to retail without error a conversation that
had lasted for several hours together. I rather agree,
top, with M. Charles (Revue des deux Mondes, 1845) in
thinking that his own mind became confused and
perplexed.

11 Elle lui avait parl6 d'astrologie, de chiromancie, de
jumens sacre"es, de Pitt, de Chatham, des etoiles, de
serpens a t6te humaine et de la pierre philosophale ;
elle 1'avait appelle idiot, bonhomme, tete de bois,
et buche. Elle 1'avait caresse, flatte, mystifie, insulte",
prfcch6, console", confess^, compliment^, et regale", si
bien qu'il ne savait plus du tout ou il en £tait."

1830-1838] LADY HESTER'S INACCURACIES 327

I will now give one or two instances of the untrust-
worthiness of Lady Hester's memory. "James might
think," she says (Vol. II., p. 38), "he did a great deal
for me, but, let me ask you, did I not make a pretty
great sacrifice for Lord Mahon and for him ? I sold
a pretty round sum out of the American funds, and
James took possession of about £500 worth of plate
of mine, and of my jewels, and of Tippoo Saib's gold
powder flask, worth £200." My father never received
any money from her, and his brothers had (as appears
from their letters) whatever they required from him.
Jewels Lady Hester certainly never possessed, and I
cannot understand how she acquired £500 worth of
plate or any money in the South American funds.
Tippoo Saib's powder flask remained in her pos-
session, and was left in Messrs. Coutts1 care when
she left England. It was officially valued at £21 155.
Then she speaks (Vol. II., p. 54) of -a former maltre
d hotel of Mr. Pitt named Rice, who was & protege ot
hers, and —

" Not like you, doctor, for he listened to my
advice. The very first thing Mr. Pitt did, after coming
into office the second time, was to provide for Mr.
Rice. We had just got to Downing Street, and every-
thing was in disorder. I was in the drawing-room ;
Mr. Pitt, I believe, had dined out. When he came
home, ' Hester/ said he, ' we must think of our dear,
good friend Rice. I have desired the list to be
brought to me to-morrow morning, and we will see
what suits him.' ' I think we had better see now/ I
replied. 'Oh, no, it is too late, now.' 'Not at all/
I rejoined, and I rang the bell and desired the
servant to go to the Treasury and bring me the list.
• " On examining it, I found three places for which
he was eligible. ' Rice/ said I, * here are three
places to be filled up. One is a place in the Treasury,
where you may fag on and, by the time you are
forty-five or fifty, you may be master of twenty or

328 A WELCOME PRESENT [CH. vn

five and twenty thousand pounds. There is another
will bring you into contact with poor younger sons
of the nobility, you will be invited out, get tickets
for the opera, and may make yourself a fine gentle-
man. The third is in the Customs ; there you must
fag a great deal, but you will make a great deal of
money. It is a searcher's place.' "

My father remembered this Mr. Rice perfectly. He
was never in Mr. Pitt's household, and received his
office from Mr. Addington. She was evidently think-
ing of some one else.

Again (Vol. II., p. 31), "I was not insensible to
praise from such a man " (Mr. Pitt), " and when,
before Home Tooke and other clever men, he told
me I was fit to sit between Augustus and Maecenas,
I suppose I must believe it." My father adds this
marginal note, " Home Tooke did not dine in company
with Mr. Pitt, but was, during his administration, sent
to the Tower on a charge of high treason." May I
confess that I am also a little sceptical as to his placing
her between Augustus and Maecenas? and that I
am inclined to think he spoke in jest when he
said to her (Vol. II., p. 32), "If you were a man,
Hester, I would send you on the Continent with sixty
thousand men and give you carte blanche ; and I am
sure that not one of my plans would fail, and not one
soldier would go with nis shoes unblacked."

It would be very unfair to judge Lady Hester by
her conversation at this period of her life, but, accord-
ing to her sister, it did not do her justice even in her
best days. " I do not know," writes Lady Griselda
to my father, full of dismay and indignation at the
announcement of the doctor's book, " whether I
underrated her, but I believe her reputation for
talent of a superior kind would, like Buonaparte's,
be diminished by detailing her conversations, which,
though amusing, no sensible person could listen to
without feeling their great emptiness."

In September of this year Lady Hester received a
present that pleased her very much, even though it
came from England. It was a splendidly bound
copy of " The History of the Temple of Jerusalem,

1830-1838] "FORGOTTEN BY THE WORLD" 329

translated by the Rev. J. Reynolds," forwarded by
the Oriental Translation Fund Society, with a com-
plimentary letter from the president, Sir Gore Ouseley.
Her letter of thanks contains, as will be seen, a dis-
sertation on one of her favourite topics — the Arabic
origin of European families. Her method of proof is
very simple. With a fine disdain of etymology, she
takes her stand upon a similarity of sounds in the
pronunciation of names and words, and at once
assumes their connection. She even found an Arabic
origin for her grandfather's title of Chatham, but,
by a cruel omission, neglected to affiliate our own
family.

Lady Hester to Rt. Hon. Sir Gore Ouseley

"DJOUNI ON MOUNT LEBANON,

" September 2o/#, 1837.

" Forgotten by the world, I cannot feel otherwise
than much flattered by the mark of attention which it
has pleased the society of learned men to honour me
with. I must therefore beg leave, in expressing my
gratitude, to return my sincere thanks. You must
not suppose that I am the least of an Arabic scholar,
for I cannot neither read nor write one word of that
language, and am (without affectation), a great dunce
upon some subjects. Having lived part of my life
with the greatest philosophers and politicians of the
age, I have been able to make this observation, that
all of them, however they may dispute and ingeniously
reason upon abstruse subjects, have, in moments of
confidence, candidly declared that we can go no
farther. Here we must stop— all is problematical ;
therefore I have wished, however it may appear
presumptuous, to go farther and remove some of these
stumbling-blocks, not by erudition, but by trusting to
some happy accident.

" It is extraordinary that many of this nature have
occurred to me during my residence in the East.

330 O'BRIEN OR OBEYAN [CH. vn

First, many proofs of the fallacy of history; next,
being denied, and even scouted as gross superstition,
many curious facts, which are pretended to be doubted,
because no one knows how to account for them,
but which real knowledge can clearly substantiate.
There is a work in which Alexander the Great is
clearly proved the son of the High Priest of Jupiter
Ammon, and it was by his father's instructions that
he succeeded in confining Gog and Magog, of which
the name of the Cid Skander is the corroborative
evidence. Then the gap in history which ought to
be filled up with the reign of Malek Sayf (a second
King Solomon) and his family, and after him Hamzy,
the sort of Messiah of the Druses, who is expected to
return in another form. I once saw a work which
clearly proved the Pyramids to be antediluvian, and
that Japhet was aware that the deluge was to be
partial, as he placed that which was most valuable to
him in another part of the world.

" But what I have taken the most pleasure in, is
the different races of men — more important, it must
be granted, than even those of horses, whose history
in former times was intimately connected with that
of their masters. I should be rather led to suppose
that the name of O'Brien was Obeyan or Abeyan,
which famous race may perhaps take its name from
its master. One of my mares is of this race, not the
one with the two backbones, which is mentioned by
an ancient prophecy.

"• The Bedoween Arabs may be divided into two
distinct classes, original Arabs and the descendants
of Ismael, whose daughter married the ninth descend-
ant of the great Katan, out of which germ sprang
the famous tribe of Koreish, subdivided into many
tribes, and which are a mixture of Hebrew blood.

1830-1838] SCOTTISH ANTECEDENTS 331

One of the most famous tribes was that of the Beni
Hasheniz, from which spring the Boshnak and the
Beni Omeyu, the Irish, always famous for the beauty
of their women. The Scotch are likewise Koreish —
the nobility descending from the King Al Yem (and
his court), father of Gebailuata, who headed the
fifty thousand horse, when they took their flight from
the Hedjaz, after a quarrel with the Caliph Omar.
They resided some time in Syria, but when the town
of Gebeili became inadequate to contain their numbers,
many took themselves off to the Emperor Herculius,
towards Antioch and Tarsus.

" They afterwards left this country in four different
divisions, the Scotch, the Irish, the Bosnaks, and the
Albanians; the Albanians being joined by the dis-
banded soldiers of Tamerlane, called Shams, who
adopted their dress and manners, and passed for
Albanians, but are rather despised to this day by the
thoroughbred Albanians, of which I consider the
Josca to be the true breed, of whom the great, to
this period, marry only among themselves ; still pre-
serving in their persons that lightness which the
Ghigars have not, whose race is rather mon-
grelized — although perhaps finer men upon the whole
— identified more by their courage and activity than
by their persons with the native Arabs. It is said
that one tribe went to India, but I doubt this
authority, and think that perhaps they took the road
to India, but did not arrive there ; for the tribe of
Malek is now to be found visiting at times the blacks
in Africa, who are equally astonished by their beauty
as well as by the positive interdiction of lying among
them. They call themselves Koreish, but they are in
fact a generation before the Koreish, the first of whom
was Ferk, or Fish, or Fyr. In case of the tribe of

332 SCOTTISH ANTECEDENTS [CH. vn

Malek counting for one, the Scotch and Irish must
have gone together.

" The names of Minorca and Majorca have likewise
references, which are too long to enter upon.

" Gibraltar probably took its name from the great
chief Gebailu Alta, and the monkeys remaining on the
mountain without doing any harm or infesting the
town seem to indicate that they are confined to certain
localities by talismanic art, well known among the
Koreish, but ill-understood in these days.

" If you had not an Arab sign about you, which I
observed when you first made your diplomatic bow,
I should hardly venture to express this supposition,
as it would place me still higher in the list of mad-
women, in which I now stand before the eyes of the
world. Notwithstanding, I can bring facts incontro-
vertible or corroborative to prove all that I assert, and
my suppositions, therefore, are only founded upon
facts of the same nature.

" But first, respecting the South, I should like to
know how the name of one of the most famous and
greatest idols of the East, Lochaber, was transported
into Scotland — from whence, and by whom ? and
Malcolm (Ma-el-com)— I will leave you learned to
guess the import ; Ameltoo (I have done it), Hamilton ;
Addeitoo (I have numbered them) answers to Omar ;
Macduff, with the tambourine, that is, with the band
of music ; Mackenzie (maalkenz), with the treasure,
probably the Khasmadar; Elphinstone (the pistachio
nut) ; Gordon (gurdaii), a jewel worn by women round
the neck. The tribe of Gordon is now in the Neaja
country, about thirty-six days from Bussora; the
tribe of Argyle has at times sojourned on the borders
of Syria.

" I need not go any farther ; you must look over

1830-1838] PHILOSOPHER OF CHANCE 333

the Scotch titles and names "of persons and places,
and you will see how many there are who, it is plain
to perceive, are of Arabic origin, and you will soon
observe the relation they bear either to circumstances,
former employments, propensities, or tastes.

" You cannot expect, when a Frenchman remains
forty years in England, and can neither pronounce or
spell a name, that during such a lapse of time many
of these names should not have undergone changes,
but their origin is yet evident.

"The Duke of Leinster's motto (Crom Aboo% his
father's vineyards) has a grand signification, alluding
to the most learned of works, of which only two
copies exist, and which was not well understood even
by the great Ulemas until about five hundred years
afterwards, when Shaikh Mohadeen of the Beni Taya
found out the key.

" If I have intruded too long on your valuable time,
and that the philosopher of chance should have pre-
sumed to have offered a little heterogeneous informa-
tion to the learned, you, Sir, must the more willingly
forgive me, as your name holds such intrusion in
command — ' I want you ' (Ouseley). Your star denotes
you to be of admirable good taste and great perspicuity,
and the sign I have mentioned that you are of ancient
origin, therefore well calculated to investigate the
subjects I have had the honour to lay before you.

" You will forgive me for having used the pen of
another, but my sight and state of health will not at
all times allow of my writing a long letter.

" I salute all the philosophers with respect.

11 HESTER LUCY STANHOPE."

How astounded the old Celts would have been to
hear that their rousing war cry, Crom-a-boo, was an
allusion to the most learned of Eastern works !

334 PRESS GANGS [CH. VH

During this autumn, a forced levy for Ibrahim
Pacha's army was carried on with merciless severity
in Syria. Till the Egyptian conquest conscription
had been unknown, for the Pacha's troops were always
mercenaries ; but now, without a note of warning, the
scourge descended upon the land. One evening, as
the people of Sayda were coming out of the mosques
and coffee-houses, they were waylaid by gangs of
soldiers, who seized upon all the young men. The
gates of the town had been previously closed, but
some got away to the houses on the town walls, from
whence they were let down by baskets into the open
country. Here they were comparatively safe, for
there were plenty of hiding-places, such as caves,
ancient sepulchres, &c., that were known only to the
peasants and shepherds, who faithfully guarded them.
Others found a refuge in the Consulates, where no
one could venture to molest them. But when this
became known, the poor old fathers were dragged
out in front of these houses, and flogged nearly to
death under their sons' eyes, till, in their torture, they
called upon them to give themselves up — " Come out !
come out, and save our lives ! " Women were hung
up by the hair of their head and whipped till they
disclosed their sons' hiding-places. Those that were
taken were never seen again. Once a soldier, always
a soldier, in Ibrahim Pacha's army; death or desertion
alone released them from service, and they were
promptly drafted off to Egypt, while the Egyptian
conscripts were brought to Syria.

During this time of panic and distress, rpany
entreaties for protection were addressed to Lady
Hester. The old barber surgeon of Sayda, Mustafa,
came to implore her to take two of his sons into her
service : " a letter from the Syt to the commandant
would save them." She was ill, and could not see
him, but the doctor brought her his petition.

" She considered the matter over, and as Mustafa
was rather a favourite, she said at first, ' I think I will
write to the commandant, for poor Mustafa will go
crazy if his children are taken away from him. I
have only to say that I wish the commandant to

1830-1838] LADY HESTER'S DREAM 335

baksheesh ' (make a present of) ' these boys to me, and
I know he will do it.' Then, reflecting a little while,
she altered her mind. ' No, doctor,' says she, ' it will
hot do ; I must not do anything in the face of the
laws of the country ; and besides, I shall have all
the fathers and mothers in Sayda up here. Go, tell
him so.' I did, and Mustafa returned very much
dispirited to Sayda."

Then two of her maids, Fatoom and Saada, came
and fell down before her, kissed her feet and the hem
of her garment, and begged her for the love of God
to save their brothers, who had been put down on
the fatal roll. She dismissed them with the same
answer she had given to Mustafa and all the other
suppliants. She could do nothing contrary to the
law of the land, and their brothers must take their
chance with the rest. But she had a plan of her own.

" Three or four days had elapsed, when, quitting my
house in the morning to go to Lady Hester's," writes
the doctor, " I found that all her people were full of
an extraordinary dream she had had. She had seen
in her vision a man with a white beard, who had
conducted her among the ravines of Mount Lebanon
to a place where, in a cavern, lay two youths apparently
in a trance, and had told her to lead them away to
her residence. She attempted to raise them, and at
the same moment the earth opened and she awoke.
As soon as I saw Lady Hester, she recounted to me
her dream to the same effect, but with many more
particulars. Being in the habit of hearing strange
things of this kind from her, I thought nothing of it,
although I well knew there was something intended
by it, as she never spoke without a motive.

"Next morning I saw, as 1 passed the porter's lodge,
two peasant lads sitting in it ; and as soon as I got to

336 LADY HESTER'S STRATEGY [CH. vn

Lady Hester's room, she asked me if I had observed
them. ' Isn't it wonderful, doctor,' said she, ' that I
should have had exactly the same dream two nights
following? and the second time so strongly impressed
on my mind, that I was sure some of it would turn
out true, and so it has. For this very morning, long
before daylight, I had Logmagi called, and describing
to him the way he was to go in the mountain until he
should come to a wild spot I pointed to him, I sent
him off; and sure enough, he found these two lads
you saw, concealed, not in a cave, but in a tree, just
where I had directed him to go.

"'They are two runaway conscripts, and although
I know nothing of them, yet I seem to feel that God
directed me to bring them here. Poor lads ! did you
observe whether they looked pale ? They must be in
want of nourishment ; for the search that is going on
everywhere after deserters is very hot. Logmagi
himself had no very pleasant task to perform ; for, if
they had mistaken him for a man in search of them,
one against two in the heart of the mountain ran some
risk for his life. You know, one deserter the other
day wounded three soldiers who attempted to take
him, and another killed two out of five, and although
taken, was not punished by the Pacha, who exchanged
willingly an athletic gladiator, who had proved his
fighting propensities, for two cowards.'

" These two lads, whom Lady Hester pretended not
to know, were the brothers of Fat6om and Saada.1
They were put into a room in an inner enclosure,
where they had comfortable quarters assigned them,
and were kept for two months hid from observation,

1 I well remember how Sir Frederic Lamb (the diplomatist, after-
wards third and last Viscount Melbourne) praised the great cleverness
of her method of managing this affair, and the knowledge it displayed
of the Oriental character.

1830-1838] LOGMAGI 337

by which means they escaped the conscription for that
year. At the end of their term, they were one day
turned out, told they might go home in safety, and
warned that, if ever they made their appearance near
the house, they would be flogged. Such were Lady
Hester's eccentric ways! and just as they were wasting
their breath in protestations of gratitude they were
frightened out of their senses. No doubt the reason
was that, as, from their long stay in the premises
they were more or less acquainted with every locality,
it might be that they had formed a plan to carry off
stolen goods, which Lady Hester had thus the fore-
sight to frustrate."

Logmagi, or, more properly, Hassan-el-Logmagi,
here first mentioned, had been for some years installed
as Lady Hester's steward, purveyor, emissary, and
factotum at Sayda. All her transactions with the
people of the country passed through his hands : he
distributed many of her charities, and had travelled
on her behalf to Constantinople and Marseilles. He
was " a good-looking, cheerful fellow," who had begun
life as a sponge-diver (hence his appellation), then
traded along the coast in a small craft of his own, and
latterly received from Abdalla Pacha the command of
one of his armed cruisers. His little schapka had been
chartered to convey the doctor and his family to
Cyprus six years before; he thus became known to
Lady Hester, who took a fancy to him, and when,
after the fall of Acre, Abdalla Pacha had been sent in
chains to Egypt, engaged him for her own special
service. He was quite uneducated, and could neither
read nor write, but had a good deal of native shrewd-
ness and mother-wit, and was a great newsmonger,
keeping Lady Hester well informed of all that went
on in the country.1 She had, besides, several other
spies and secret emissaries, and was always perfectly
well acquainted with the course of affairs at Damascus,
Acre, Aleppo, &c.

1 I afterwards heard at Sayda that Logmagi amassed a large
fortune, which was dissipated by his spendthrift sons.

3

338 A LONGED-FOR LETTER [CH. VH

For some months past she had been anxiously
expecting a letter from Sir Francis Burdett. Lord
Hardwicke had apparently regarded her Irish estate
as a mere hallucination, and she had turned for
assistance and information to the friend of her youth,
whom she always remembered with the greatest
regard. She had perfect confidence in his truth and
loyalty, and was persuaded that he would see her
righted. On his answer everything now depended ;
it was her last chance. She had announced that she
would soon be able to pay her creditors ; they were
clamouring for the expected money, and she was
forced to stave off, as best she might, their growing
importunity. Each time a mail steamer arrived on
the coast she was in a fever of expectation and
impatience, and could not rest till she knew what it
had brought her. Messenger after messenger was
despatched in breathless haste to fetch the expected
letter, but they always returned empty-handed ; no
letter had come. The suspense and anxiety told
terribly upon her in her enfeebled state. She was,
in truth, very ill : so thin that her bones almost pro-
truded through her skin, and she could find no
position of ease in which to lie down. Her cough
was so violent and incessant that she could scarcely
either speak, or listen to the doctor's reading ; and
during this miserable winter her indomitable spirit
for the first time gave way. One day the doctor
found her in tears. " Doctor," she gasped out, " I am
very poorly to-day, and I was still worse in the night.
I was within that " (holding up her finger) " of death's
door, and I find nothing now will relieve me. A little
while ago I could depend on something or other,
when seized with these spasmodic attacks, but now
everything fails ! How can I get better, when I can't
have a moment's repose from morning till night ?
When I was ill on former occasions, I could amuse
myself with my thoughts, with cutting out in paper —
why, I have a closet full of models, in paper, 01 rooms,
and arches, and vaults, and pavilions, and buildings,
with so many plans of alterations, you can't think.
But now, if I want a pair of scissors, they can't be
found ; if I want a needle and thread, there is none
forthcoming ; and I am wearied to death about the
smallest trifles." She paused, and then resumed : " I

1830-1838] "AN HUMBLE INSTRUMENT" 339

have been under the saw" (drawing the little finger
of her right hand backward and forward across the
forefinger of her left) " for many years, and not a
tooth but what has told; but it is God's will, and I
do not repine ; it is man's ingratitude that wounds
me most. How many harsh answers have even you
given me, when I have been telling you things for
your good : it is that which hurts me. When I see
people of understanding moidering away their time,
losing their memory, and doing nothing that is useful
to mankind, I must be frank, and tell them of it.
You are in darkness, and I have done my best to
enlighten you ; if I have not succeeded, it is not my
fault. As for pleasing or displeasing me, put that
out of your head; there is no more in that than in
pleasing or displeasing that door. I am but a worm —
a poor, miserable being — an humble instrument in the
hand of God." The doctor was so affected that he,
too, burst into tears, and Lady Hester at once set
about to comfort him, and restore him with coffee and
orange-flower water. Another time he found, to his
surprise, that she had risen from her sick bed, and
gone into the garden, in order that her room might
be put to rights. In consequence of her long con-
finement, this had become urgently necessary, and
she asked the doctor to superintend the cleaning, lest
her thieving maids should rob her of the few things
she still retained. He was shocked at the state in
which he found her sick-room. " But, oh ! what a
sight ! — such dust, such confusion, such cobwebs !
Never was a lady's room seen before in such a
condition : bundles, phials, linen, calico, silk, gallipots,
clothes, etuis, papers, were all lying about on the
floor, and in the corners, and behind and under the
scanty furniture ; for all this while she had been
afraid to get the chamber put in order, lest her
servants should take advantage of the opportunity
to plunder her." Her silver spoons she was obliged
(as we have seen) to keep under a cushion on her
divan. Well might she cry, " Who is to take care of
me, surrounded as I am with those horrible servants?"
On New Year's Eve, again, she cried long and bitterly,
and, calling to Zezefoon to dress her, rushed out of
her bedroom and into the saloon ; but here, during
her illness, the sofa cushions had been piled up and

340 AN UNREPENTANT PRODIGAL [CH. vn

the sofa mattresses removed, and she found no place
where she could sit down. She had perforce to
return to the sick-room where she had spent so many
weary weeks. When the doctor came to her in the
evening she told him of her distress. " Doctor," she
said, " to-night in my father's house there used to be
a hundred tenants and servants sitting down to a
good dinner, and dancing and making merry. I see
their happy faces now before my eyes: and when I
think of that, and how I am surrounded here, it is
too much for me. When you left me this morning,
things of former times came over my mind, and I
could not bear to sit here, so I went out to break the
chain of my thoughts. I would have gone into the
garden, but it rained."

She was fond of declaring that she would never
return to England except in chains ; but now, in her
extremity, her thoughts reverted to her lost English
home, and the old familiar faces she was to see no
more. She bitterly complained of the way she had
been treated, of the cruel neglect and persistent ill-
usage of her family — the family she nad scouted,
disowned, and defied ! " Here I am," she would cry,
"abandoned and forgotten, and left to die, without
one relation near me ! " She forgot, in her indigna-
tion, that they could in reality know nothing of her
sad state : she had refused to answer her sister's
letters, and herself cut off all means of communication.
Her illness, too, was kept secret ; even Mrs. Meryon
had not been told of it ; for " to say I am ill," she
declared, " would be bringing a host of creditors upon
me, and I should not be able to get bread to eat."

At length, on January 27th, 1838 — a memorable date
for her — Mr. Abela, the Consular Agent at Sayda,
arrived with a letter that Mr. Moore, the Consul at
Beyrout, had desired him to give into her own hands.
Lady Hester, who was at daggers drawn with all the
Consular authorities, positively refused to receive him.
Mr. Abela insisted ; she flew into a violent passion,
and, after a long altercation, he was forced to submit,
and allow the letter to be given to her by the doctor.
Now that, at last, she held it in her hand, Lady Hester
believed all her troubles had come to an end. She
never for a moment doubted what the answer would
be. No more waiting and watching ; no more of the

1830-1838] A DEATH-BLOW 341

slow agony of hope deferred ; no more debts and
duns ; the hour of her triumph and deliverance had
struck, and she had come into her inheritance. She
had worked herself up to such a pitch of excitement
that the doctor actually feared she might break a
blood-vessel. Alas ! when she opened her letter, she
found it was not the expected reply from Sir Francis,
but a very different missive. It was her death-blow
that she had unconsciously received.

Several years before, a money-lender, of the name
of Homsy, to whom Lady Hester owed 5,250 dollars,
petitioned the Viceroy of Egypt to interfere in his
behalf. He declared that his whole future existence
depended upon this sum (between £1,000 and .£1,100
in English money),1 and that its loss reduced him to
abject misery. Mehemet Ali, who was no friend to
Lady Hester, the declared antagonist of his tool and
ally, the Emir Beshyr, took up the case, and applied
to Colonel Campbell, Consul-General in Syria, to
obtain payment of this debt.

All English subjects resident in Turkey are, by the
capitulations, under the sole jurisdiction of their own
Government, and all suits are carried before the
tribunal of their Consul, and decided by him. Strictly
speaking, he has no more right, under the law of
England, to adjudicate in such matters, than to compel
Turkish subjects to appear before him; "yet the
advantages of encouraging the practice are so obvious,
that the British Consuls, very properly, have never
hesitated to go beyond the strict letter of the law,
trusting to the good sense of British subjects." But,
should they refuse to accept his decision, the Consul
has no power to enforce it, and the case must go
before the native tribunals.

On October 22nd, 1834, Colonel Campbell applied
to the Home Government on Homsy's behalf, and the
Duke of Wellington, then at the Foreign Office, very
sensibly refused to allow him to interfere in the
matter. " Her Majesty's Government have no con-

1 It is, I am told, impossible to ascertain the exact value of the old
Egyptian silver dollar previous to the monetary reform carried out
by Mehemet Ali in 1834. According to the value then assigned
to it, 4*. ij^., the exact sum due to M. Homsy would be
£1,077 Ss. n^d. There were, however, other kinds of dollars then
in circulation.

342 "A DIRTY FELLOW" [CH. vn

trol over Lady Hester Stanhope which could be
exercised in favour of her creditors, and as the
pecuniary transactions referred to appear to be
entirely of a private nature, his Grace does not con-
ceive that you can interfere in any official or authori-
tative manner with respect to them."

This settled the question, but only for a time. The
next year found the "official tormentors" again at
work on Colonel Campbell, and on December iQth,
1835, he made a second application to the Foreign
Office, pointing out " the great inconvenience which
cannot fail, in any case, to accrue in conforming to
the Duke's instructions." He was keen to interfere,
but the Attorney-General, when consulted, entirely
confirmed the Duke's decision. He reported that
British consuls had no right to adjudicate between
Turkish and British subjects ; " it must be done by
consent of the parties, and Lady Hester must be asked
to submit to his jurisdiction."

Here Colonel Campbell found himself in a fix ; for
he well knew what the answer to such a request would
be. Lady Hester and he were on the worst possible
terms. She speaks of him in one of her letters as
" a dirty fellow " ; they had had no communication for
years, and he might as well have asked the sun and
the stars to submit to his jurisdiction. He felt himself
powerless, and explained the difficulty and delicacy
there was in " dealing with her ladyship, a solitary
female of no inconsiderable rank, in a foreign country,
distant from her relations and connexions," and sug-
gested that it would be best for them to pay Mr.
Homsy. It never seems to have occurred to him to
take the trouble of investigating either the nature of
the debt or the character of the creditor.

After this the matter was allowed to rest for nearly
two years. Then, in September, 1837, Colonel
Campbell received another urgent official letter re-
specting the claim of the indefatigable Homsy. He
was reminded that " whenever claims were brought
forward by British merchants against Turks, the
most ready attention was paid to them, and therefore
British subjects should be equally obliged to pay their
just debts to the natives of the country."

Hereupon he wrote a vigorous letter home, this
time addressed to Lord Palmerston, who had now

1830-1838] CONFISCATION OF PENSION 343

replaced the Duke of Wellington at the Foreign Office.
" Your Lordship will, I am sure, perceive the extreme
embarrassment in which I am placed by the un-
fortunate conduct of Lady Hester Stanhope, and the
prejudice which might arise in consequence of it to
the interests of Her Majesty's subjects."

Lord Palmerston was full of sympathy, and ready
and willing to help him, but how to do it was the
difficulty. Legal action had been pronounced im-
practicable without Lady Hester's assent, and she
had repeatedly declared that she no longer con-
sidered herself an English subject. How, then, was
she to be coerced? It was decided that only by
means of her pension could this be done — her pension
must be stopped for payment of the debt. The
Attorney-General was this time, it seems, left out of
the question ; had he been consulted on this high-
handed and drastic measure, there is little doubt that
it would never have been adopted.

Colonel Campbell was instructed to inform Lady
Hester "confidentially" of the confiscation of her
pension. Now, however, that he had secured his
weapon, he was for some time rather perplexed how
to use it. He found that he had no hold of any kind
on Lady Hester, as the certificates for her pension
were always signed by the French Consul, M. Guys,
and not by Mr. Moore. After some hesitation, he
made up his mind to write, and proposed to do so
with every possible regard to her feelings. " At all
events," he told Lord Palmerston, " you may be sure
that I shall not for a moment forget Lady Hester's
rank and sex, and that she is the niece of Pitt."

His letter shows what his idea of proper con-
sideration must have been. But it is only fair to
remember that the one here given was the second that
he had written to her ; the first, by some accident or
other, was never delivered, and consequently never
acknowledged.

Colonel Campbell to Lady Hester

" CAIRO,

" January loth, 1838.

" MADAM, — I trust that your Ladyship will believe
my sincerity, when I assure you with how much

344 A CRUEL LETTER [CH. vn

reluctance and pain it is that I feel myself again l
imperatively called upon to address you upon the
subject of the debt so long due by you to Mr.
Homsy.

" The government of the Viceroy has addressed that
of Her Majesty on the subject; and by a despatch
which I have received from Her Majesty's principal
Secretary jof State for Foreign Affairs, I am led to
believe that a confidential friend of your Ladyship
will have already written to you to entreat you to
settle this affair.2

" Your Ladyship must be aware that in order to
procure your pension from Her Majesty's Govern-
ment, it is necessary to sign a declaration, and to
have the consular certificate, at the expiration of each
quarter.

"I know that this certificate has hitherto been
signed by M. Guys, the Consul of France at Beyrout ;
but in strict legality, it ought to be certified by the
British, and not by any foreign consul; and should your
Ladyship absolutely refuse the payment of this just
claim, I shall feel myself, however deeply I may regret
it, forced to take measures to prevent the signature
of the French, or any other consul but the British,
being considered as valid, and consequently your

1 This communication Lady Hester never received. " He never
addressed me on the subject, neither has anyone else. Nearly two
years ago there was a report in the Bazaar that my debts had been
spoken of to the King ; that my pension was to be seized ; that I was
to be put under consular jurisdiction ; and a set of extravagant things
that nobody ever heard the like. And certainly those who had
ventured to charge themselves with such a message would have found
that I was a cousin of Lord Camelford's."

2 In the previous month of November, my father told Mr
Backhouse, of the Foreign Office, " that a confidential friend of the
family, who was supposed to have some influence over Lady Hester
Stanhope, would write to her by that month's packet." This letter,
probably from Lord Hardwicke, is not forthcoming, but is probably
the one she alludes to in writing to him on October 21, 1838
(see p. 412).

1830-1838] OFFICIAL VINDICTIVENESS 345

bill for your pension will not be paid at home. I
shall communicate this, if your Ladyship's conduct
should oblige me so to do, to M. Guys and the
other foreign consuls at Beyrout, in order that your
certificate may not be signed, and also send this
under flying seal to Mr. Moore, Her Majesty's Consul
at Beyrout, in order that he may take the necessary
steps to make this known to those consuls, if your
Ladyship should call on them to sign the quarterly
certificate for your pension.

" I trust that your Ladyship will be pleased to
favour me with a reply, informing me of your
intentions, which reply will be forwarded to me by
Mr. Moore.

" I beg your Ladyship will be assured of the pain
which I experience in being obliged to discharge this
truly unpleasant duty, as well as the respect with
which I have the honour to remain,

" Your Ladyship's most obedient, humble servant,

"PATRICK CAMPBELL,
" H.M.'s Agent for Egypt and Syria."

CHAPTER VIII

PRINCE PUCKLER MUSKAU — DJOUN

1838

WHEN this cruel letter was first placed in her hands,
Lady Hester had been violently excited ; but, as she
read it, her emotion subsided, and she became quite
calm and composed. Her pride was up in arms. Was
it possible that she, Pitt's niece, had lived to be treated
as a defaulting debtor? Was it credible that the Queen
and her ministers should have been guilty of so
unheard-of an outrage ? Had they altogether for-
gotten who she was, and whence she sprang ?

"My grandfather and Mr. Pitt did something, I
think, to keep the Brunswick family on the throne ;
and yet the granddaughter of the old King, without
hearing the circumstances of my getting into debt, or
whether the story is true (for it might be false), sends
to deprive me of my pension in a foreign country,
where I may remain and starve. If it had not been
for my brother Charles, and General Barnard, the only
two who knew what they were about, when the
mutiny took place against the Duke of Kent at Gib-
raltar, she would not be where she is now, for her
father would have been killed to a certainty."

" She mused for some time, and then went on :
' Perhaps it is better for me that this should have
happened ; it brings me at once before the world, and
let it judge the matter. It would have looked too much

346

1838] UNRUFFLED COMPOSURE 347

like shucklaban ' (the Arabic for charlatanism) • if I
had to go and tell every one my own story, without
a reason for it. But now, since they have chosen to
make a bankrupt of me, I shall come out with a few
things that will make them ashamed. The old King
wrote down on the paper : ' Let her have the greatest
pension that can be granted to a woman.' — If he were
to rise up and see me now ! ' "

She spoke then, and ever after, with unruffled
composure of the insult she had received ; but it
rankled all the more bitterly and persistently.
" Colonel Campbell's letter," says the doctor, " had
given a stab to her heart, from which she never
recovered. In proportion to the apparent calm that
she endeavoured to assume, did the feeling of the
supposed indignity which she had received prey
upon her spirits." It was seldom absent from her
thoughts ; she was constantly reverting to it, and
considering what she should do, and to whom
she should appeal. " I think," she said, " I will take
the bull by the horns, and write to the Queen." But,
first of all, she had to answer Colonel Campbell. Here
is her letter, with the enclosure.

Lady Hester to Colonel Campbell

" DjOUN,

" February tfti, 1838.

11 SIR, — I shall give no sort of answer to your letter
of the loth of January (received the 27th) until I have
seen a copy of H.M.'s commands respecting my debt
to Mr. Homsy, or of the official order from the
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, as well as the
statement of Mr. Homsy's claim sent to England, to
whom, and through whom, in order that I may know
whom I have to deal with, as well as be able to judge
of the accuracy of the documents.

" I hope in future that you will not think it necessary
to make me any excuses for the execution of your

348 FALSE COMPLIMENTS [CH. vm

duty ; on the contrary, I should wish to recommend
you all to put on large Brutus wigs when you sit on
the woolsack at Alexandria or at Beyrout.

" HESTER LUCY STANHOPE."

The doctor asked " what he should put at the close,
and how she chose to subscribe herself? 'Say
nothing,' replied she. ' How many times I have said
I could never call myself the humble servant of
anybody. I hate and detest all these compliments, so
unmeaning and false ; but to Mr. Moore you may
express my esteem and regard.' "

Lady Hester to Mr. Moore, H.M's Consul at Beyrout

" SIR, — The sacrifice which I have made of your
acquaintance and your society, that you might stand
quite clear of everything that affects me, appears to
be of little purpose. You will have some very dis-
agreeable business to go through probably, as you
will be made Col. Campbell's honourable agent, and
he the agent of the wise Lord Palmerston, and he the
agent of your magnificent Queen. There is Col.
Campbell's answer, which I have left open for your
perusal, as he did his.

" If, in the end, I find that you deserve the name of
a true Scotchman, I shall never take ill the part that
you may have taken against me, as it appears to be
consistent with your duty in these dirty times.
" I remain, with truth and regard, yours,

" HESTER LUCY STANHOPE."

" Now," she said, " the thing to be considered is
whether I shall write a letter to the Queen, and ask
the Duke of Wellington to give it to her, or whether I
shall put it in the newspapers ; for I am afraid, if I
send it to him, he will not give it to her, or, if he does,

1838] LETTER TO QUEEN VICTORIA 349

they will say nothing about it. I should like to ask
for a public inquiry into my debts and for what I have
contracted them. Let them compare the good I have
done in the cause of humanity and science with the
Duchess of Kent's debts."

She was not long in making up her mind, and, ill
and suffering as she was,1 all the following letters were
dictated on the same day.

Lady Hester to Queen Victoria

" DJOUN, MOUNT LEBANON,

"February I2t/i, 1838.

" MADAM, — Your Majesty must allow me to say, that
few things are more disgraceful and inimical to
Royalty than giving commands without examining all
their different bearings, and to cast without reason an
aspersion upon the integrity of any branch of a family,
who has faithfully served their country and the House
of Hanover.

" As no inquiries have been made of me what
circumstances induced me to incur the debts alluded
to by Y.M.'s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, I
deem it unnecessary to enter into any details or
explanations upon the subject. But I shall not allow
the pension given by your Royal grandfather to be
stopped by force. I shall resign it for the payment of
my debts, and with it the name of an English subject
and the slavery at present annexed to it. And, as
Y.M. has given publicity to this business, by Y.M.'s
orders to consular agents, I surely cannot be blamed
for following your Royal example.

" HESTER LUCY STANHOPE."

1 The doctor gives a sad account of her in his diary. Her back
was bent as she sat up in bed ; her fingers were cold ; and she could
only sleep in one particular position. She used to compare herself to
little toy tumblers ; place her as you would she rolled over to the left
side, as if there were a weight of lead there.

350 EFFECTS OF THE SIEGE OF ACRE [CH. vm

This was, as some one observed, "the letter to a
Queen from a Queen." It was enclosed to Lord
Palmerston,1 but, as a further precaution, she sent a
copy to the Duke of Wellington, with the following
letter :

" DJOUN, MOUNT LEBANON,

"February 12th, 1838.

" MY DEAR DUKE, — If you merit but half the feeling
and eloquent praise I heard bestowed upon you
shortly before I saw you, you are the last man in the
world either to be offended or misconstrue my motives
in writing to you upon the subject in question, or not
to know how to account for the warmth of the expres-
sions I may make use of, which are only characteristic
of my disposition.

" Your Grace's long residence in the East will have
taught you that there is no common-rate character in
England an adequate judge what manner of living best
answers among a semi-barbarous people, and how
little possible it is to measure one's expenses where
frequent revolutions and petty wars are carried on
without any provision for the sufferers, from its being
considered the duty of every one to assist them, as
their humanity may dictate or as their circumstances
may afford. Acre besieged for seven months — some
days seventy-two thousand balls thrown in in the
twenty-four hours — at last taken by storm, and little
more than two hundred of the garrison remaining, and
the wretched inhabitants, who expected to find succour
from their old friends, found their backs turned upon
them, in the dread and awe they stood in of Ibrahim
Pasha. And it is very strange to say that the Franks
likewise held back in a most extraordinary manner.
Therefore these unhappy people had no resource but

1 I have no copy of her letter to Lord Palmerston ; only his reply
(see p. 399).

1838] DJOUN 351

in me, and I did the best I could for them all.
Mahomet All, Ibrahim Pasha, Sheriff Pasha, all set at
me at once, in order to make me give up certain
persons, who immediately would have lost their heads
for having fought well in the cause in which they
were engaged. I fought them all round, single-handed,
and said that I neither protected these persons in the
English or the French name, but in my own, as a poor
Arab, who would not give up an unhappy being but
with their own life ; that there was no other chance of
making me bend by any other means than by attempt-
ing mine.

" By these means I saved some unfortunate beings,
whom I got rid of by degrees, by sending them back
to their own country, or providing for them at a
distance in some way or other. Can you, as a soldier,
blame me for what I have done ? I should have
acted in the same way, before your eyes, to the victims
of your own sword. Then the host of orphans, and
widows, and little children, whom to feed and clothe
for nearly two years took away all the ready money
with which I ought in part to have paid my debts,
and caused new ones. Yet I am no swindler, and
will not appear like one. Your Queen had no busi-
ness to meddle with my affairs. In due time, please
God, I should have known how to arrange to satisfy
everybody, even if I left myself a beggar. If she
pretended to have a right to stop my pension, I resign
it altogether, as well as the name of an English
subject, for there is no family has served their country
and the Crown more faithfully than . mine has done ;
and I am not inclined to be treated with moins cfegards
than was formerly shown to a gentlemanlike high-
wayman.

" I have been, every day, in expectation of a reply

352 UNFOUNDED QUARRELS [CH. vin

from Sir Francis Burdett, respecting a large property
which is said to have been left me in Ireland, and
which has been concealed from me for many years.
In case of its coming into my hands, I shall still not
keep my pension, in order to cut off any communi-
cation with the English Government, from whom only
proceed acts of folly, which, any moment, may re-
bound upon an individual. I chose Sir Francis
Burdett to look into my affairs because I believe him
to be a truly conscientious, honest man. Although
we always disagreed upon politics, we were always
the best friends. It appears to me that he is now
beginning to see things in their proper light.

" You may say that it is strange that I apply to
a person out of my own family. My brother, Lord
S., having dined with Lord Holland to meet Mr.
Fox, when Mr. Pitt was on his deathbed, when I
regretted this unhappy inadvertency (which I be-
lieved it to be), I was so shocked with the cold-
blooded answer he gave me that, in the agitation of
my feelings, I made a vow never to see him again.
This I have kept, and have had no conversation or
communication with him since the period of Mr. Pitt's
death.

" Therefore, all that I have to entreat of your Grace
is to allow me to appear in the light in which I really
stand — attached to humanity, and attached to royalty,
and attached to the claims that one human being
has upon another. Nor can I allow myself to be
deemed an intriguer, because I have said here in all
societies, that persons who abet those who attempt
to shake the throne of Sultan Mahmoud, shake the
throne of their own sovereign, and therefore commit
high treason, and among that class of persons I do
not choose to rank myself. Nor am I to be reckoned

1838] DJOUN 353

an incendiary, because I seek to vindicate my own
character, that never was marked with either base-
ness or folly — it may have been, perhaps, with too
little consideration for what are called in the world
my own interests, which I, in fact, despise, or at least
only consider in a secondary point of view.

" There is no one more capable of making the
Queen understand that a Pitt is a unique race than
your Grace. There is no trifling with them.

" I have sent a duplicate of the enclosed letter to
the Queen to my Lord Palmerston, through the hands
of Mr. Moore, the English Consul. If it has not
reached her safe, I hope you will see that this one
does, or otherwise I shall put it in the Augsburg/i
Gazette, or in some American newspaper.

" If Lord Wellesley has not forgot that I always
was and shall be among his great admirers, say what-
ever you may think most pleasing to him from me.
It is a homage to his merit, and to the friendship
Mr. Pitt bore him.

" I have the honour to remain,
" My dear Duke,

" with great truth and regard,

" the attached friend of your family,
" HESTER LUCY STANHOPE."

The Duke at once communicated this letter to my
brother, who, at his request, drew up the Memor-
andum here given.

"Mayzisf, 1838.

" It appears on enquiry that the letter which Lady
H. Stanhope has addressed to the Q. has already been
laid before H.M. by Lord Palmerston, and it is there-
fore unnecessary that the D. of W. should forward
the copy which Lady H. has transmitted to him.
24

354 LORD STANHOPE'S MEMORANDUM [CH. vin

" It is much lamented that Lady H. Stanhope's
feelings should be wounded by what has passed ; but
she may be assured that there was not the slightest
intention to show her Ladyship anything approaching
to slight or discourtesy. On the contrary, it is be-
lieved that the course taken was entirely consistent
with, nay even prompted by, the high respect due to
Lady Hester's rank and sex, and to the niece of Pitt ;
and it is earnestly hoped that she herself, on recon-
sideration of the subject, may incline to a more
favourable view than she has hitherto adopted.

" The claims upon her Ladyship were so repeatedly
urged upon Colonel Campbell at Alexandria, and
pleaded in bar of other claims by British upon
Egyptian subjects, that it became the duty of Col.
Campbell to make representations to Lord Palmer-
ston ; and when the subject came to be considered
at home, it was borne in mind that, admitting Lady
Hester's debts to have been incurred in the cause
of humanity and science — admitting that the delay
in paying them had arisen from accidental and chari-
table causes— yet, that these motives would not be
appreciated by the creditors themselves, and that
further delay would expose her Ladyship to having
the affair taken up, in a violent and vindictive manner,
by the native tribunals.

"Her Ladyship is entreated to reflect how unde-
sirable it would be that these tribunals should be
allowed to claim or exercise jurisdiction over her;
yet how could it be effectually prevented unless some
steps were taken for the adjustment of the matter
at issue ?

" It is also respectfully submitted to Lady Hester
that her recollection is not accurate in the mention
which she makes of Lord Stanhope, in her letter to

1838] A DIFFERENT VERSION 355

the Duke of Wellington, as having dined with Lord
Holland while Mr. Pitt was on his deathbed. It is
positively affirmed by Lord Stanhope that, so far
from this being the fact, he was not even acquainted
with Lord Holland until some time after Mr. Pitt's
decease."

I may here mention, that when this absurd story
afterwards appeared in print, my father felt himself
obliged to write the following letter to the Times :

" SIR, — I regret that it should be necessary for me,
in justification of my own character, to notice an
assertion made in ' The Memoirs of Lady Hester
Stanhope, as related by herself in conversations with
her Physician' (Vol. II., p. 296), that I went to dine
in company with Mr. Fox, when Mr. Pitt was on his
deathbed. This is utterly unfounded, for I never
dined in company with Mr. Fox, and never had any
personal acquaintance with him ; and at the period
referred to I dined at Mr. Pitt's house in Downing
Street with a large party, assembled as usual before
the meeting of Parliament. There are in those
Memoirs several other misrepresentations and mis-
statements concerning myself, which I forbear to
mention, as they relate to private and family affairs.

" I may also express my concern that any physician
should have considered it as consistent with his sense
of propriety to publish the report of conversations
between himself and one of his patients.

" I am, Sir, your faithful humble servant,

" STANHOPE."

I think this affords a curious instance of the growth
of an hallucination in Lady Hester's mind, owing to
the tricks her treacherous memory played her. She
had a recollection that my father had dined out during

356 THE WHEEL HORSE [CH. vm

Mr. Pitt's illness — could it have been with Lord
Holland ? it surely was ; no doubt to meet Mr. Fox !
it would have been like him to go there, ungrateful
as he was to all who had ever befriended him. Yes,
yes ! now she remembered — now it was all clear ! He
had gone to meet Mr. Fox, and that was why she had
quarrelled with him !

Two other letters of Lady Hester's are of the same
date.

Lady Hester to Mr. Speaker Abercromby

" DJOUN,

^February I2t/t, 1838.

" MY DEAR SIR, — Probably the wheel horse has
forgotten his driver, but the latter has not forgotten
him.1 I am told that the chief weight of the carriage
of state bears upon you ; if so, it must be a ponderous
one indeed, if I can judge by a specimen of the talent
of those who guide it.

"You, who have read and thought a great deal
upon men and manners, must be aware that there
are situations, almost unknown in Europe, in which
persons in what is called a semi-barbarous country
cannot extricate themselves with honour without
either taking a part for or against humanity ; besides,
there are gusts of information which, if you do not
take advantage of at the moment, are lost to you for
ever. I have, therefore, exceeded my pecuniary
means, but not without the hope of extricating myself
without the assistance of any one, or, at least (and
ever before my eyes, should the worst come to the
worst), that of selling the reversion of what I possess.
Your magnificent Queen has made me appear like a
bankrupt in the world, and partly like a swindler,
having given strict orders that one usurer's account

1 This alludes to her childhood, when she played at horses with
Mr. Abercromby.

1838] DJOUN 357

must be paid immediately or my pension stopped,
without taking into consideration others who have
equal claims upon me. Her Majesty has not thrown
the gauntlet before a driveller or a coward. Those
who are advisers of these steps cannot be wise
men. . . .

" Whatever men's political opinions may be, if they
act from conscientious motives, I have always re-
spected them, and you know that I have always had
friends in all parties. Therefore, without any refer-
ence to the present or past political career of ministers,
or H.M.'s advisers, their conduct would appear to
me, respecting myself, identically as it was — gentle-
manlike or blackguard. But having had but too
strong a specimen of the latter, by their attempting
to bully a Pitt and to place me under consular control,
it is sufficient for me to resign the name of an English
subject, for the justice granted to the slave of des-
potism far exceeds that which has been shown to me.

" Believe me, with esteem and regard,

" Yours,
"HESTER LUCY STANHOPE."

Lady Hester to Sir Edward Sugden

" DJOUN,

"February 12th, 1838.

" SIR, — Born an aristocrat (for this assurance I re-
ceived from your father, whom it appeared to annoy
as much as it delighted me), with these genuine
feelings it will not be necessary for me to make
many excuses for bringing so abruptly before you a
subject which relates to this cause as well as that of
justice.

11 1 will not bore you with long details, for it will
be sufficient for you to know that after my arrival

358 LADY HESTER'S EXPLANATIONS [CH. vin

in the East 1 was not regarded by any class of persons
with the same eye of suspicion as strangers generally
are. I have had it in my power, without making use
of intrigue or subterfuge on my part, or hurting the
religious or political feelings of others in any way,
to hear and investigate things which had never yet
been investigated. This fortunate circumstance does
not relate to those who profess Islamism alone, but
to all the curious religions (not sects) which are to
be found in different parts of the East. Not that I
have learned the secrets of one religion to betray them
to another: on the contrary, I have observed an in-
violable silence with all ; but it has served to en-
lighten, as well as consolidate, my own ideas, and
given me an opportunity of seeking corroboratory
evidence of many wonderfully important and abstract
things, which has hitherto been very satisfactory.

" The revolutions and public calamities, which often
take place in what is called a semi-barbarous country,
call for great presence of mind and energy, and a
degree of humanity and liberality unknown in Europe.
To leave unfortunate sufferers starving at your gate
until you have had an opportunity of inquiring into
their private character, and investigating how far it
is likely to endanger your own life or risk your pro-
perty in receiving them — these reflections are not
made in the East. One takes one's chance, and if one
wishes to keep up one's character of either an Eastern
monarch or an Eastern peasant, you must treat even
an enemy in misfortune avec les memes egards that
you would a friend. Starting upon this principle
(which is, indeed, a natural one, and was always
mine), there were times in which I have been obliged
to spend more money than I could well afford, and
this has been the cause of my incurring debt ; not

1838] THE DUTIES OF A PEER 359

that I owe a farthing to a poor peasant or a trades-
man, but all to usurers and rascals that have lent
their money out at an exorbitant interest. You may
judge of their conscience : in their last levy of troops,
made about two months ago by Ibrahim Pasha, some
rich peasants gave one hundred per cent, for six
months for money to buy off their sons who were
conscripts.

" I often abuse the English ; and for why ? Because
they have nearly lost their national character. The
aristocracy is a proud, morose, inactive class of men,
having no great fundamental principles to guide them,
and not half the power that they give to themselves —
very little more worthy of being trusted by their
Sovereign than by the people — full of ideas, all
egotistical, and full of their own importance and
weight, in a country which may differ from an ounce
to a pound in twenty-four hours by the wavering
political line of conduct which they may observe
during that time, and which neither secures the con-
fidence of the people nor the friendship of their
Sovereign. And these columns of state may be
reckoned a sort of ministers without responsibility,
but who ought to be willing at all times to make
every possible sacrifice for the honour of the Crown,
and for the good of the people in cases of emergency
and misfortune.

" Had I been an English peer, do you suppose I
would have allowed the Duke of York's debts to
remain unpaid? I should have laid down a large
sum, and engaged my brethren to have done the
same. If I had not succeeded, I should have broken
my coronet, and have considered myself of neither
greater nor smaller importance than the sign of a
duke's head in front of a public-house. But, ever

360 AN ATTACK ON THE QUEEN [CH. vm

willing to come forward with my life and property,
I should expect that the Sovereign should treat me
with respect, and not act with the egregious folly
and want of feeling and etiquette which has distin-
guished the enlightened Queen Victoria in her pro-
ceedings towards me.

" I have been written to by the Consul-General for
Egypt and Syria, Colonel Campbell, that if I do not
pay one of my numerous creditors I shall be deprived
of my pension. I should like to see that person
come forward who dares to threaten a Pitt. Having
given themselves a supposed right over the pension
they may take it all. In the early part of my life
there was nothing I feared so much as plague, ship-
wreck, and debts ; it has been my fate to suffer from
them all. Respecting my debts, of course I had ex-
pectations of their being settled; but if I was de-
ceived in those expectations I kept in view the sale
of my pension, as well as of an annuity of £1,500 a
year, left me by my brother, if the worst came to the
worst. The importance of the plan 1 was pursuing
must, as you can easily imagine, have appeared most
arbitrary, from my coolly deliberating that the moment
might arrive when I should make myself a beggar.
But I should have done my duty. What sort of right,
then, had the Queen to meddle in my affairs, and to
give orders, in total ignorance of the subject, upon
the strength of an appeal from a man whose claims
might be half fabulous, and to offer me the indignity
of forbidding a foreign consul to sign the certificate
that I was among the number of the living in order
to get my pension into her hands? I shall never
forgive this gross act of illegality, nor the vulgarity
with which it was executed. I have written a few
lines on the subject, and there is my final determina-

1838] DJOUN 361

tion : ' I shall give up my pension, and with it the
name of an English subject and the slavery that is
entailed upon it.' I have too much confidence in the
great Disposer of all things, and in the magnificent
star that has hitherto borne me above the heads of
my enemies, to feel that I have done a rash act. I
can be anything but ignoble, or belie the origin from
which I sprung.

" I have been assured by those not likely to deceive
me that a large property has been left me in Ireland,
which has been concealed from me by my relations.
I have put this business into the hands of Sir Francis
Burdett ; but should I in future require a law opinion
upon the subject, you will not, I hope, take it ill that
I should apply to your superior talents for advice.

"There is a horrible jealousy existing respecting
the friendship between me and M. H. Guys, the
French Consul at Beyrout. His grandfather, a learned
old philosopher, was in constant correspondence with
the great Lord Chesterfield. It was natural, there-
fore, that his son, the present M. Guys' father, should
feel interested about me when I first came into the
country, and M. Henry Guys has always put into
execution his father's friendly intentions towards me.
He is a very respectable man, and stands very high
in the estimation of all classes of persons ; and as at
one time there was no English consul or agent at
Sayda, the French agent sent a certificate of my life
four times a year to England. At the death of this
man M. Guys sent it himself. If you honour me
with a reply, I request you to address your letter to
him (aux soins de M. le Chevalier H. Guys, Consul
de France a Beyrout), notwithstanding he has been
named for Aleppo, as it is the only way I am likely
to receive my letters unopened, or perhaps at all."

362 PRINCE PUCKLER MUSKAU [CH. vm

As spring approached, Lady Hester's health rapidly
improved ; her cough abated, her spirits revived, and
she was at length released from her long and dreary
confinement. In March she was sitting in her
favourite alcove in the garden, then full of nightingales
and spring flowers, blossoming in all the lavish
luxuriance of the East. " A sofa covered with maroon-
coloured cloth, and flowered chintz cushions, ran
across the back of the alcove. On this she was
leaning, and, dressed in her white abba, with its large
folds, she looked exactly like the statue of an antique
Roman matron. Halfway up the avenue stood an
attendant in a handsome white Nizam dress, which is
exceedingly becoming to youth, waiting her call. As
I advanced towards her, between two hedges, the
one of double jessamine in full bud, and the other
of bright green periwinkle, with its blue flowers,
forming an azure band from one end to the other, I
was struck with the magical illusion which she ever
contrived to throw around herself in the commonest
circumstances of life."

She held in her hand a letter she had that morning
received. " Do you know, doctor," she said, " that
Prince Piickler Muskau has just arrived at Sayda, and
has written me a very agreeable, and I think a very
sincere letter ? Read it, and say what you think of it."
When he had done so, she resumed : " Now, doctor,
you must go and see the Prince at Sayda, for I can't
see him myself. The fatigue is too great for the
present ; but I will engage him to return again when I
am better." He was one of the last visitors that came
to Djoun.

Another letter from England had likewise arrived —
again not from Sir Francis ; but this time a kind and
friendly letter, written by her cousin, Lord Ebrington,
to which she sent the following reply :

Lady Hester to Lord Ebrington

" March 29^, 1838.

" MY DEAR LORD EBRINGTON, — Your letter of the 26th
of December reached me on the 22nd of March, a few
days ago. It gave me great satisfaction to find you
had not altogether forgotten me or my interests. I

1838] LADY HESTER'S ULTIMATUM 363

am so ignorant of what passes in England, generally
speaking, that I was not aware that pensions were to
be revised. The first I heard of it was a traveller
having mentioned, about a fortnight ago, that such
was the intention of Government. But as I did not see
him, I had no opportunity of enquiring into par-
ticulars. You tell me that you are upon the committee,
and that whatever I have to say respecting my
pension, I had better write it to you. I have nothing
to say. You can hardly suppose that I would owe a
pension to the commiseration of a pettifogging com-
mittee when I refused Mr. Fox's liberal proposition of
securing me a handsome income by a grant of Parlia-
ment. Neither should I, under any circumstances,
lower the name of my dear old King or my own by
giving any explanation. It was H.M.'s pleasure to
give me a pension — that is sufficient, or ought to be
sufficient. New-coined Royalties I do not understand,
nor do I wish to understand them, nor any of their
proceedings. My ultimatum respecting my pension I
have given to the Duke of Wellington, founded upon
the impudent letter of Colonel Campbell, a copy of
which I enclose.

" Believe me, my dear Lord,
" Sincerely yours,

" HESTER LUCY STANHOPE."

In the following month the German Prince arrived,
and spent a whole week at Djoun. He has left a
detailed account of his visit, which was published in
Brief e eines Verstorbemn (Berlin, 1846).

"Even before I found myself within a few hours'
ride of Lady Hester Stanhope's mountain home, I had
made up my mind not to leave Syria before I had seen

364 PRINCE PUCKLER MUSKAU [CH. vm

and spoken with this remarkable woman ; though
during these latter years, especially since the visit of M.
Lamartine (the published account of which she highly
resented), she had absolutely refused to receive
strangers. Only quite recently two celebrated men,
Clot Bey and Dr. Bowring, had, in spite of all imagin-
able efforts on their part, fared no better than the
rest. I began by writing a rather singular, half
emotional, half deferential letter to this lady, described
as ires exaltee"

Prince Puckler Muskau to Lady Hester

"March 2ot/it 1838.

" MY LADY, — Sachant que vous n'aimez gueres les
visites des etrangers, n'y ayant souvent rencontre
qu'une vaine curiosite et quelquefois meme de 1'indis-
cr6tion, je vous avoue franchement, Madame, que ce
n'est qu'en tremblant que je vous demande a mon
tour la permission de vous rendre mes devoirs.
Cependant permettez-moi de vous dire que depuis de
longues annees mon imagination a anticipe le plaisir
de vous connaitre, et que ce serait un vrai acte de
cruaute de votre part, si vous pouviez a present, oil ce
moment tant desire est enfin arrive, me refuser le bon-
heur de presenter mes respects a la Reine de Palmyre,
et a la niece du grand Pitt.

"Au reste, j'ose encore ajouter que d'apres ce que
j'ai entendu dire de vous, Madame, il doit regner
quelque affinite entre nos caracteres : car, comme vous,
my Lady, je ne cherche notre salut futur que dans
1'Orient, dont les populations, encore plus pres de
Dieu et de la nature, peuvent seules raffraichir un jour
cette civilisation pourrie de la vieille Europe oil tout
est factice, et qui nous menace sous peu d'un nouveau
genre de barbaric, non pas celle du commencement

1838] DJOUN 365

mais celle de la fin : comme vous, Madame, je crois
que 1'astrologie n'est pas une vaine science, mais une
science perdue : comme vous, my Lady, je suis
aristocrate de naissance et par principe, parceque je
trouve partout dans la nature 1'aristocratie la plus
prononcee : comme vous enfin, Madame, j'aime a
veiller la nuit et dormir le jour. La je m'arrete : car,
pour le genie, la force de caractere, la vie grande et
singuliere que vous avez menee, ne resemble pas a
Lady Stanhope qui veut.

" Je finis cette lettre, qui doit vous paraitre deja trop
longue, en vous priant instamment, de ne pas prendre
pour des phrases ce que m'a dicte un coeur encore naif
et ingenu, quoique vieux. Je ne suis ni Francais ni
Anglais ; je ne suis qu'un bon et simple Allemand,
qu'on peut peut-etre taxer de trop d'enthousiasme,
mais jamais ni de flatterie ni de mauvaise foi.

" LE PRINCE DE PUCKLER MUSKAU.

" P.S. — Dans le cas que vous consentiez a me
recevoir, oserais-je vous prier encore de me faire
accompagner par le Comte de Tattenbach, jeune
homme a mon service, qui me verroit partir seul avec
trop de regrets pour ne pas risquer encore cette
demande? Quoique blesse assez severement d'un
coup de pistolet, il n'a pu etre retenu a Acre, pour ne
pas manquer 1'occasion de vous presenter ses hom-
mages. Cependant, que votre volonte, my Lady, soit
faite en tout, et non pas la mienne."

41 This letter remained for eight days unanswered.
During this interval I kept quite silent. Then ap-
peared an apparently thoroughly Orientalized, richly-
dressed English doctor, who announced himself as
Lady Hester's physician, and came to tell me she was
too ill to receive visitors. This doctor, in spite of his

366 PRINCE PUCKLER MUSKAU [CH. vm

conspicuous costume,1 proved a simple, amiable, well-
bred man ; and I told him how much I regretted Lady
Hester's illness, but should await her recovery, even
if I had to wait for years. Then we talked of other
things, and I presented to him two pretty Abyssinian
slave-girls, of whom he had already heard, and whose
chatter in Arabic seemed to please him so much that I
felt sure he would comply with my parting request, to
come again often. This he did ; and during the few
weeks that he visited me, either at Beyrout or Sayda,
we became such fast friends that he exchanged the part
of a diplomatic agent for that of a staunch ally. I
therefore entrusted him with a second billet doux to the
invisible Lady, making it as original as I possibly
could ; and this time, to my great joy, I received a
charming answer, full of humour and wit, but still
declining to see me, on the ground of health. Thence-
forward, with studied importunity, I wrote daily to
Lady Hester, occasionally saying all manner of extra-
vagant things, till at last she gave in, declaring, half in
anger and half in jest, that I must be ' quite foolish ' to
pursue an old woman like her with such incredible
pertinacity, and that, only to be rid of me, she would
receive me at Dar Joon on the following Sunday.

" This did not wholly satisfy me ; for my object was,
if possible, not only to be endured but wished for by
this eccentric lady. So I ventured to send a very cool
response, regretting that I had already fixed that day

1 If the Prince found fault with the doctor's appearance, he was in
his turn freely critized by the latter. " The Prince is a tall man, about
fifty years of age. I found him dressed in a loose morning gown,
with white trousers, and a yellow scarf thrown over his shoulders
somewhat for effect, with a casquette on, and having the air and
demeanour of what he was — a man of the world and of high rank. He
had a chameleon crawling about on the tube of his pipe and on his
chair ; and every now and then his exclamation of Oil done est le
camtlton f oil est man petit bijou ? made me fear at first we were going
to have a second edition of M. Lamartine and his lapdog."

1838] DJOUN 367

for an excursion into the country, and begging her to
appoint another ; requesting, at the same time, per-
mission to spend not only one day, but several days
with her. I wished this all the more, I added, because
I had more important communications to make than she
was aware of. It was rather comical to carry out
Goethe's axiom, ' Provoke and beguile,' so successfully
with a sexagenarian dame."

None of this coquetry of correspondence appears in
the doctor's matter-of-fact narrative. Lady Hester, it
seems, was very willing to receive the Prince had she
been well enough. She had heard of him as a literary
man, engaged on writing his travels, and she hoped he
might help her in laying her case before the world.
She was pleased with his letter. " I can see," she said,
" that he and I shall dp very well together ; besides, I
must be very civil to him, for he has got such a tongue
and such a pen ! I think I shall invite him to come
and see the garden and the horses ; but you must tell
him the mare's back is not only like a natural saddle,
but that there are two backbones for a spine ; that is
the most curious part. But no ! if he comes he will
fill my house with people, and I shall be worried to
death ; it will only make me ill ; so I will write to him
after dinner."

Lady Hester to Prince Puckler Muskau

"Joon, March 21, 1838.

" I trust, Prince," she wrote, " you will believe me
when I say I am overwhelmed with regret that my
health will not permit of my having, at this moment,
the honour of making the acquaintance of a philosopher
and a philanthropist such as you are. You may ask
everybody whether for these last five months I have
seen a single soul, except M. Guys once ; and although
in that once I every now and then retired for a few
moments to my room to recover myself, and then
returned to him again, yet after he was gone I had a
relapse of some days. I would willingly purchase at

368 FATIGUES OF HOSPITALITY [CH. vm

the same price the pleasure of seeing you ; but, in
doing so, it might incapacitate me for some months
longer from managing a very disagreeable business
that has sprung up between the Queen, the English
Government, and myself; they pretending to meddle
with my affairs, which, be assured, is what I will not
allow.

" As my natural energy would not suffer me to
converse tranquilly when things sublime and of the
highest importance would be our subjects, we must
give up meeting for the present ; but I console myself
with the hope that your Highness will not leave Syria
until I have had an opportunity of appreciating a man
different, they say, from other men, and of making the
acquaintance of your young Count, who, in devoting
himself to your principles, necessarily secures one's
admiration of his character.

" HESTER LUCY STANHOPE."

She found, however, that the Prince was " not to be
put off." He persevered, and she finally agreed to
receive him on his return from an expedition into the
interior ; but it was after much hesitation. There was
not only the dread of fatigue but the question of
expense. She had no money in the house ; she owed
her servants several months' wages, and on the news
that her pension was stopped, every petty trader in
the bazaars was putting forward his claim. How was
she to receive her guests ? " How am I to lodge the
Prince and accommodate his people ? And his dinners,
with a wretched cook, and nothing of any sort fit for a
man of rank ! No, doctor, it will not dp ! " The doctor
suggested she might put off the visit. "Oh, but,
doctor ! " she answered, " his book, his book ! I must
see him, if it is only to have some things written down.
Is it not cruel to be left here as I am, without one
relation ever coming to see me ? To think of the time
when the Duke of Buckingham would not even let a
servant go to order an ice for me, but must go himself
and see it brought — and now ! "

1838] DJOUN 369

Lady Hester to Prince Puckler Muskau

" I find your Highness to be a great philosopher, but
nevertheless a very unreasonable man. Is your object
in coming here to laugh at a poor creature reduced by
sickness to skin and bone, who has lost half her sight
and all her teeth ? or is it to hear true philosophy ?
Alas ! at this moment a terrible cough puts it out of
my power even to speak during the greater part of the
twenty-four hours. But I will not be stubborn, and if
you will consent to put off your visit for eight or ten
days I will receive you then, even if my health should
be no better, that you may fulfil the object of your
visit. However, I hope, as the fine weather is at hand,
and as I now begin to get a little sleep, which I have
not done for many months past, that I shall be able to
converse with you for some hours at a time. . . .

"Sunday, Monday, Thursday, and Friday, will be
the days most propitious for our first meeting. I
should prefer Monday or Thursday, according to the
calculation I have made of your star and your character.
So, Prince, depart in peace ; only, when you return,
write a little before to apprize me of it.

" HESTER LUCY STANHOPE."

The Prince accordingly announced his arrival for
Easter Sunday, April 15. He was preceded by " two
European servants, followed by three or four mule-
loads of baggage." Close upon these arrived seven or
eight more mules with his Tartar, the Count's servant,
and the drivers : " in all," groans the poor doctor,
" thirteen animals to keep ! " Then appeared the
Prince and his suite.

" It was a beautiful day," he writes, " such as is only
known in the favoured South, the air so ' silver-clear '
(as Lamartine, with too great licentia poetica, expresses

25

370 PRINCE PUCKLER MUSKAU [CH. vm

it), that one fancied one could see through the moun-
tains, when I, attended (by Lady Hester's express
desire) by my whole train of slaves and servants,
mounted the winding road that led to the little fortress
of Dar Joon. We had hitherto been crossing barren
and stony mountains, with here and there a few trees
and brushwood. Here, in the valley, there was more
cultivation, partly on laboriously-raised terraces, and
in the midst, surrounded by the dusty bed of a dried-up
mountain torrent, rose a steep cone, on whose summit,
within an encircling wall, appeared the roofs of several
detached buildings. Here it was the Lady dwelt.

" As the gates opened, I was received by my friend
the doctor, and installed in a little pavilion, surrounded
by gardens, and entered by a green verandah covered
with climbing roses — as comfortable as it was rural.

" During a rapidly-served meal Dr. Meryon told me
that Lady Hester hoped I would stay eight days with
her. She was, however, seldom visible before midnight,
consequently, he added, smiling, ' your visit will be
eight nights rather than eight days.' ' Capital ! ' I
cried ; ' this not only suits the land of The Thousand
and One Nights, but my own habits, for I enact the
night watchman wherever I go, and I assure you I
shall look forward with real impatience to my midnight
rendezvous?

" The usual siesta, more refreshing than a night's
rest in this climate, filled up the interval, and at the
appointed hour my Turco-English guide appeared to
conduct me to his mistress. A black slave-girl lighted
us through several passages and courts — for Dar Joon
consists of a number of small isolated dwellings,
connected by verandahs — till we reached the largest
of all, inhabited by Lady Hester alone, and never
entered without her express permission, a police

1838] DJOUN 371

regulation so rigidly enforced that even the Doctor
hastily left me at the door. Here an old negress took
charge of me, and led me along a nearly pitch-dark
corridor to a thick red portiere, behind which shone a
light that proved I was at last on the threshold of the
long-sought sanctuary. My heart beat high with
excitement, for, after all the romantic reports that I
had heard, I imagined I was to see something fantastic
and extraordinary. It was quite the reverse. In a
small room, as simply furnished as the one assigned
to me, on a very poor divan, sat the Lady of Dar Joon,
evidently still suffering from the effects of a severe
illness. She signed to me, very graciously, to take an
English arm-chair opposite to her.

" Our long correspondence had so far brought us
together that we presently talked like old acquaintances,
while I did not neglect to observe her very closely.

" In spite of her evident weakness, she received me
with great liveliness, and her whole demeanour was
that of a woman of the world, in the European sense,
with an elegance and grace of manner not of everyday
occurrence among Englishwomen, which, combined
with the Oriental dignity and repose of her bearing,
gave her a peculiar charm. Instead of the splendidly-
equipped retainers, prostrating themselves on the
ground before their stern mistress, the one slave-girl
who brought us pipes and coffee behaved as she would
have done in any other well-ordered household, and
there was no attempt at display. Lady Hester's own
dress was simplicity itself. A red turban, a white
burnous reaching to her feet, red silk Turkish trousers
and stockings (for on these thick carpets slippers are
not required), showed that she had long since discarded
the tasteless Frank dress for the comfortable garb of
the East. When she soon after rose, and, leaning on

372 LADY HESTER'S APPEARANCE [CH. vm

a long wand, crossed the room to show me something
of which she had spoken, she looked to me like a Sibyl
of old. The pale, regular features, the dark, flashing
eyes, the tall, white-robed figure, with its head-gear of
flaming red, the severe and stately mien, the sonorous
and rather deep-toned voice, together produced a
striking and really imposing effect, without the slightest
shade of affectation. On the contrary, no one could
be more natural or more real than I found Lady Hester
from first to last. Hers was a strong, almost too
masculine character, that despised every kind of
pretence.

" ' Since my fortune melted away,' she began, ' I live
here like a dervish, and require no luxuries. The
older I grow, the less, thank God ! I need, and the
more eagerly I seek to draw nearer to nature, from
which civilization too much estranges us. My roses
(nowhere else have I seen such masses of roses as
in the gardens of Dar Joon) ' are my jewels ; the sun,
moon, and stars my clocks ; fruit and water my fare.
Now, I read in your physiognomy,' she added, archly,
'for I know how to interpret the stars, the plants,
and the faces of men, that you are an epicure. How
will you ever stand this life for eight whole days ?'

" I could answer this the more becomingly, as I had
already found that her guests were not condemned
to a dish of fruit and water ; and I knew, too, that her
poverty was at all events English poverty, pretty
nearly equivalent to German wealth. Yet she was
relatively poor, and latterly reduced to a sixth part
of her former income. She afterwards gave me some
details as to her affairs, and spoke with some bitterness
of the harshness and ingratitude of her family.

" But now my one wish was to lead her back to the
stars, and in this I found no difficulty, for her belief

1838] ASTROLOGY IN ART 373

in astrology was absolute. I, for my own part, respect
all convictions, and though unable to follow Lady
Hester in all her flights, I must confess that, when
one has seen for one's self the inexplicable influence
the moon exercises over certain individuals, there
seems to be nothing unreasonable in attributing to
the stars in general, and more especially to the planets
of our solar system, some similar power over the
natures, and consequently the destinies, of men. Nor
will I summarily condemn as absurd Lady Hester's
belief in a chain of invisible superior beings, whom
we can as little understand as we do the inferior
beings around us, yet with whom we may occasionally
communicate. It is, I think, much more absurd to
deny such things positively, and argues a degree of
presumption of which I for one will not be guilty.

" ' Were we better versed in astrology,' said Lady
Hester, ' and more familiar with the needs and qualities
prefigured by such and such a constellation to man at
his birth, how greatly it would benefit life, art, and
science ! The ancients, though but few of them
attained a deeper insight, had an instinctive per-
ception of this. That is why they excelled in art. I
recognise in their works the harmonious law of the
stars. The godlike forms they portrayed are free
from all incongruities and anomalies, whereas a
modern artist will constantly plant either an eye,
a nose, or a mouth in a face where, according to the
ruling of the constellations, they could never exist,
or a head on limbs that form an equally impossible
combination. But then, how much more important is
this knowledge in life ! We should not see half as
many failures of vocation, of misapplied or wasted
talent, if we better understood what our star ordains
and fits us to be. You may believe my long experi-

374 TERRESTRIAL INFLUENCES [CH. vm

ence. Many a medicine that cures one man will,
under apparently exactly similar circumstances, kill
another. For instance, what is good for the Children
of the Sun is highly dangerous to the Children of
the Moon ; and there are numberless gradations and
distinctions that astrology alone can help us to dis-
tinguish. I will go so far as to affirm that even a
verbal communication may enlighten one man and
ruin another. In this consists the magic power of
words, believed in throughout the East. Therefore,
in our present state of ignorance, education becomes
blind guesswork, and we fall back, in spite of all, to
be what the stars decided we should be at our birth.

" ' Everyone is born under the influence of one or
more stars, on whose position in the heavens in con-
junction with the earth at the hour of their nativity
much will depend, as well as on the vicinity of other
stars, either beneficent or malevolent in character.
The Angel or Spirit of the Star acts upon all who
belong to it. Besides this, everyone is nearly con-
nected with an allied Spirit of the Air, an animal
also allied to him, a precious stone, metal, tree, fruit,
flower, medicinal herb, etc. — sometimes, indeed, tc!
several ; and to a devil. Don't be shocked,' con-
tinued the Pythoness, laughing ; ' it is sometimes verj
good and very useful to have an efficient devil at one's
beck and call. All at the appointed time.

" ' Those born under the influence of the stars ma}
be of four separate categories, and many differen
natures, sometimes very unlike each other; and ii
trifles these differences may, like everything else ii
Nature, be multiplied a millionfold, yet in essential
each individual will remain unchangeable, governe<
by the constellation that ruled at his birth ; as, fo
instance, a ship, driven by the winds to every quarte

1838] PRINCE PUCKLER'S HOROSCOPE 375

of the heavens, is still guided by the helmsman on
its prescribed course. It is from the action of the
stars that man receives not only his direction in life,
but his nature and constitution, his qualities and
talents, his tendency to certain vices and virtues,
and his sicknesses either of body or soul, though
these may be modified by the other beings and ob-
jects related to him. Whatever changes are brought
about in the course of years in reality are but apparent,
or the result of compulsion, which is no sooner
withdrawn than the original bent reasserts itself.

" ' I have learnt by long practice and experience to
recognise, with tolerable certainty, everyone's guiding
star from their personal appearance ; but the deeper
calculations, which require greater knowledge and
higher qualities than have fallen to my lot, remain
unattainable to me. Though I discern many hidden
things, I cannot foretell with certainty either coming
events or the time when they will take place, which
to an adept is easy. There are some favoured men
on whom their star works so powerfully, that we who
are initiated can see it impressed on their foreheads ;
though I myself, in my long life, have only met with
one case of this kind. It is the nimbus or glory that
has always surrounded the heads of great prophets
and holy men, and its recognition rests on a fore-
shadowing or foreboding, however incomplete, of this
grand secret.'"

On this subject,1 as on many others, Lady

1 She cast the Prince's horoscope, and gave him, much to his
satisfaction, the dog and the horse as his animals, the rose and
carnation as his flowers, the ruby and sapphire as his precious stones,
and gold and iron as his metals. "All this was perfectly correct.
The medicines did not suit me as well. As regards the stars,
modesty forbids me to mention them. I will only say that they
corresponded with my family motto, amor et virtus."

376 LADY HESTER'S MEMORY [CH. vm

Hester proved inexhaustible ; yet the Prince declares
that—

11 During the eight days I was at Dar Joon, spending
every night six or eight hours with Lady Hester, I
may truly say I never felt a moment's fatigue or
ennui. I might fill whole volumes with accounts of
these conversations, and after each of them I felt
more and more attracted to this most remarkable
woman, who combined with an iron character such
childlike belief in the marvellous ; and with a pro-
found knowledge of men and of the world, such
touching traits of naivete as are generally met with
only in a young girl. Her memory, reaching
back unimpaired to her earliest years, is perfectly
wonderful."

She recounted to him all her travels and adventures,
but he gives only the following anecdote in detail.
I must premise that this and the very similar story
she told Mr. Kinglake are evidently founded on the
adventure described by Mr. Bruce, who was present
(see p. 163), and show by their inaccuracy the extreme
haziness of her recollections. Even the name of the
Bedouin Sheick who escorted her is wrongly given.
It was Mohanna el iFadel's son Nasar, and not his
son-in-law Dayr.

" Once, during the war between Dayr and his future
father-in-law, she travelled to Palmyra, accompanied
by Dayr himself, with an escort of three hundred men.
Dayr seemed very anxious; and at one particular
spot, where he thought he discerned indications of
an enemy near at hand, he begged Lady Hester to
halt. She would be safe there for the time, and
must wait while he and his followers proceeded to
reconnoitre. She accordingly remained behind with
her own attendants, but refused to get off her horse.

1838] LADY HESTER'S POWER 377

Both she and they were armed to the teeth. After
an hour's delay, which appeared interminable, they
suddenly heard the frightful war-whoop of the
Bedouins, and saw a large body of horsemen bearing
down upon them at full speed, their long lances all
couched in battle array. Her attendants fled, panic-
struck ; and she, left alone, in passionate indignation
plucked her pistols from her girdle, and, holding them
both at full cock, galloped with a loose rein to meet
the Bedouins. But, just as she was about to fire, she
recognized Dayr, who threw himself from his horse
to kiss her hand ; and while his men formed a circle
around them, proclaimed her, amid their deafening
acclamations, Queen of Palmyra. The poor doctor
was among the fugitives, and often, in consequence,
exposed to her bitter sarcasms.

" Her power became so great that it caused some
uneasiness even at Constantinople ; and the great
Emir Beshyr, then all-powerful in Syria, had to bow
before her. ' I should have led eighty thousand Arabs
against him,' she exclaimed, in evident pride. Then
she showed me the celebrated Dayr's answer to her
appeal to him as her ally ; at that time half the desert
tribes owed allegiance to him, and he had just defeated
the Wahabees in two great battles. He is the same
prince so often mentioned in reference to M. de
Lamartine's journey. The writing, enclosed in a
gold-embroidered cover, was as follows :

" ' Dayr, the Lion of the Desert, to Hester, the Star
of the Morning, sends greeting, with love and service.
Those who own the friendship of Mohanna-el-Fadel '
(another great chief, who, being conquered, became
his ally and gave him his daughter in marriage), ' and
obey the sabre of Dayr, hold the whole Great Desert
in the hollow of their hand, even as the ring encircles

378 ARAB VIEW OF LADY HESTER [CH. vm

the finger. Warriors without number, horses, camels,
powder and shot, what is required for food, all is
ready. Thou hast only to send thy orders.

1 Thy true friend,

1 DAYR.'

" ' Was he your lover ? ' I asked rather heedlessly,
but she answered without embarrassment, ' It has
often been said of me, but it is not true. The Arabs
have never looked upon me in the light either of a mar
or of a woman, but as un etre a part. . . .'

" She had the courage to refuse Ibrahim Pacha'j
proffered visit; and when he attempted to force hei
to receive him, she sent him word that she woulc
defend her house, and that he should only cross it?
threshold over her dead body. Ibrahim yielded ; am
1 since then,' she added ironically, ' he has troubled mi
far less than the English Consul has done.' She i:
often unjust to the English, and it is no exaggeratioi
to say that she has a real antipathy to her countrymen
She treats the doctor, devoted and necessary to he
as he is, with icy coldness; and his wife, who ha
been living for years at Dar Joon, has never yet bee:
admitted to her presence.

" ' Ah ! once upon a time,' she said to me one da}
'once upon a time I was full of ambitions and gran
projects, but since the Egyptian intruders have com
down upon us like a plague of locusts, it has please
God to visit me, in my old age and sickness, wit
much affliction and heavy trials. My mission is nc
now to strive, but to await with resignation th
coming of the Messiah, to which I have been Ion
since summoned, as well as all they,' she adde
significantly, ' who believe in Him.'

" This brings me to the good Lady's idee fixe, 2

1838] LADY HESTER'S STABLES 379

undoubted and indisputable fact, but of which I take
a different view from most other men. Good Lord !
in matters of faith those who differ should be scrupu-
lously careful how they condemn others, lest the same
measure should be meted out to them. Lady Hester
believes, in common not only with the Jews, but the
whole of the East, that the Messiah is still to come.
We believe that He has already come. Lady Hester
believes that, when He comes, He will work many
miracles. We believe that these miracles have already
been accomplished. Unquestionably we are right, and
Lady Hester is wrong; but in principle we believe
the same, only Lady Hester in futuro and we in
prceterito. One might even, at a venture, attempt to
reconcile these two different kinds of faith, by
adopting the doctrine of the repeated return of
the Messiah, which the Jewish-Catholic-Evangelical-
Episcopal-Anglican missionary Wolff, for one, firmly
believed ; and as he had passed through every form
of Christianity gradatim, he must surely be accepted
as an authority. . . .

" Of course Lady Hester also showed me her two
famous Messiah-mares, of whom one has a growth
on the back very like a Turkish saddle. They are
kept quite apart, in a separate and rather ornate
building, with a summer stable, a winter stable, a
court, and a garden. This is kept carefully locked
and guarded by two black slaves. Twice a day the
mares are led out for exercise in a larger grass plot,
enclosed in a wall. The first time Count Tattenbach
and I went to see them, they were standing loose in
their garden, under an embroidered tent cover. Long
accustomed to the homage of privileged visitors, they
behaved just like two old princesses, obliged to grant
an audience that bored them to death. Very slowly

380 THE MAGIC HORSES [CH. vin

and indifferently they turned their heads and looked
at us with an air of haughty repose. They were both
finely formed and very good-looking animals, but had
long since grown too fat. The more sacred of the two,
that has the mystic saddle, is a dark chestnut, of which
Lady Hester relates the most wonderful things, and
has been well-nigh worshipped by many dervishes,
as she is to carry the Messiah Himself on His entry
into Jerusalem. The other, intended for Lady Hester
on that great day, is a silver grey, with the head and
eyes of a gazelle ; and I must say that, as an animal,
I liked her points the best ; of her spiritual qualifica-
tions I can offer no opinion. One day Lady Hester
herself took me to see them ; and it chanced that the
Messiah-mare, whom I was patting, licked my hand.
From this moment she looked upon me as one of
the elect, and laboured to convert me to her views;
for proselytism seems to be inherent in the human
race. . . .

" Although, for many years past, Lady Hester has,
except on urgent business, written very little, and
read still less, yet the stirring and active life she
has led, and her acquaintance with most of the leading
men of the East, have enabled her to collect a vast
store of curious information, of which her wonderful
memory retains even the minutest details. No one
would be better able to discourse on the opinions
and customs of the Arabs, the different religious
sects of the Levant, the mysterious creed of the
Druses, the folk-lore, mythology, and even the history
of these various races, and throw a fresh light on all
these subjects. But she would only touch upon them
lightly, as if resolved not to discuss them, and in-
variably turned the conversation. If I attempted to
press her further she put off the discussion to another

1838] LADY HESTER ON LAMARTINE 381

day, sometimes rather irritably, peevishly declaring
that things which it had cost her years to investigate
could not be re-told in a couple of hours, and that
there were already too many false and superficial
accounts of the East, for her to wish to add to their
number by any half-comprehended utterances of her
own. ' You might, after all,' she concluded, holding
up her finger at me, 'do no better for me than M.
de Lamartine. Have you read his Voyage en Orientt
What do you think of it ? '

" ' I do not like to take upon myself to criticize so
celebrated an author,' I replied ; ' but I think that
to appreciate the descriptions of his travels one must
one's self have been in the East.'

" ' You may be quite right, but I can only judge of
the article on myself, which Dr. Meryon read to me.
Of this I can assure you, that one half is invented,
and the other half incorrect. Some of it made me
angry, and some of it made me laugh very heartily,
for it showed how comically travellers interpret to
their advantage speeches very differently intended.
He says I was struck with the beauty of his feet,1
and by this, as well as from his habit of holding his
head on one side, concluded that he was of the purest
Arab blood, which, as he declared, a family tradition
curiously corroborated. Now let me tell you the real
facts of the case. Almost as soon as he came in,
M. de Lamartine said he flattered himself that I did
not hear his name for the first time, and asked if
I had read his works. Truth unfortunately com-
pelled me to say, " No, I had not " ; adding, " as I took

1 The doctor declares that, in emulation of M. de Lamartine, all
Lady Hester's subsequent visitors tried to attract her attention to
their feet. "The Prince's boots were Parisian in their cut, and it
was clear, from their excellent fit, that he felt his pretensions to a
thoroughbred foot were now to be decided magisterially."

382 LAMARTINE'S VANITY [CH. vm

little interest in European literature." He was exces-
sively surprised ; and then informed me he was a
poet of considerable celebrity in the world. " Well,"
said I, " I should have guessed as much at first sight,
for I perceive in you some of the characteristics of
poetic genius. I think you have Arab blood in your
veins, and all Arabs are born poets." " How do you
know that?" he asked hastily. "By your general
appearance, and especially," I added with a smile, " by
your finely formed foot and arched instep." I said
this because I had observed, while he sat opposite
to me, that he stretched out one of his feet, and
regarded it with much complacency. " Likewise," I
continued, " from the lustre of your eyes, and the
shape of your eyelids, which must enable you, as
it does many Arab tribes, to see as well with half-
closed eyes as other people do with open ones."
"How singular!" he cried; "how very singular all
you tell me is, Madam ! You must know that, during
the Crusades, one hundred and fifty Arab prisoners
from Gaza were brought to France by their French
captors. These settled in my native province and
built two villages, with the castle I now inhabit.
They still preserve a peculiar jargon, intelligible only
to themselves, and probably a corruption of Arabic.
Among them were several men of rank, and I have
always understood that some of their blood was
mingled with mine. Have you also observed that
(as is told of Alexander) I have the natural habit
of inclining my head towards one shoulder? Has
this, also, an Eastern significance ? " " Oh," said I,
"now the whole matter is clear to me. As the
prisoners came from near Gaza I could tell you
exactly the tribe to which they belonged, and which
has all the characteristics you mention, especially the

1838] LADY HESTER'S JOKE 383

inclined neck." He seemed very much pleased, said
he was proud to descend from such renowned war-
riors, and begged for further particulars. These I
took good care not to give him, for they would have
been but little flattering to the exuberant vanity which
was (and from his constellation unavoidably) the
predominant feature of his character. My account
(which was strictly accurate) related not to renowned
warriors, but to a tribe of camel-drivers, who for
centuries have inhabited the country round Gaza and
Misarib, always following the same calling. From
them M. de Lamartine may well have derived his
peculiarities, for they have generally very good feet
and high insteps, are greatly esteemed as minstrels
and story-tellers, and always hold their heads on
one side, with half-closed eyes ; a habit acquired from
watching the heads of their camels, and which has
now become a second nature.'"

One can imagine Lady Hester's enjoyment of this
story.

" In fact, it seems to be Lady Hester's favourite idea,"
continues the Prince, " to trace back all the nations of
Europe to an Eastern origin, which is to be recognized
by certain signs. She is persuaded that the Scotch are
of the tribe of Beni Karasch, whose dialect affords the
solution of the puzzle regarding the Duke of Leinster's
motto * (never understood till now), and gives its name
to Lochaber. The Irish, she believes, are of Phoenician
or Carthaginian origin. This corresponds with the
discovery recently made by an Irishman, who thinks
he has proved that the dialect spoken by the Cartha-
ginian slave, Poenulus (in one of Plautus' comedies),

1 I have always heard that Crom a boo is an old Irish war-cry.
Why should the Geraldines be converted into Scotchmen ?

384 LADY HESTER'S GARDEN [CH. vm

is, in reality, the Roman pronunciation being taken
into consideration, the old Irish tongue.

44 On a night when the moon shone nearly as brightly
as the sun does with us, Lady Hester conducted me
into the sanctuary, unprofaned by vulgar eyes, of her
private garden, the most enchanting and the most
luxuriant, in all the lavish profusion of the South, that
it is possible to conceive. A whole world of roses, of
all sizes and colours and all in full bloom, shone
resplendent in the magic illumination of the full moon ;
and so freighted the air with their perfume, that one
might have sunk down into the most voluptuous
magnetic slumber. More than once, in my delight, I
buried my face, as in a purple cushion, in these delicious
masses of roses. Then we came to a lofty terrace set
with flower vases, laid out along the verge of the
rocky precipice, from whence, one's self unseen, one
may enjoy the most beautiful view over the billowy
mountains and wide stretch of sea beyond. The trees
and shrubs are disposed with the true comprehension
of pictorial effect belonging to most educated English-
women, showing just enough, and hiding just enough
of the view to satisfy the eye, and yet leave a wish
for more — the whole art of landscape gardening,
as well as of coquetry. The flower vases were made
of some excellent clay found near here, and are
very ornamental, each on a different model, and each
from her own design, showing considerable artistic
talent.

" She told me on this occasion that once, when by
the Sultan's desire she was excavating for treasure at
Jerusalem, near Solomon's Temple, she discovered a
very fine antique statue, in perfect preservation, which
the Turks who were present smashed into a thousand
pieces, in the firm belief that the gold they sought was

1838] LADY HESTER AS PHYSICIAN 385

concealed in this doll. What treasures may not have
been lost in this way ! "

This, again, is entirely incorrect. She herself ordered
the statue to be destroyed (see p. 174).

" She next spoke of the characteristic distinctions
between Eastern and Western civilization : of the
Moors in Spain ; observing, that but for Charles
Martel, we should all now have been Mahometans (to
which she, for one, would not object); then of the
Caliphs of Bagdad, and the native story-tellers.
' Come now,' she cried, inspired by the fairy-like scene
around, ' for this once I will be your story-teller.' "

And she launched forth at once into a very long story
— too long to quote — in the style of the Arabian Nights.
It would, however, seem that she herself became
exhausted with these interminable vigils, during which
the poor Prince wrote for hours to her dictation. " He
must go to-morrow," she would say to the doctor ; " he
kills me by these long conversations, and he is so
tiresome, asking for this explanation and that explana-
tion. I said to him last night, when he could not
comprehend something, Est-ce que votre esprit est dans
les tenebres ? " Yet he delayed his departure, putting
off his intended visit to the Emir Beshyr three several
times. Once, and once only, it was on the ground of
indisposition, " little knowing," says the doctor, " the
consequences of feeling unwell in her Ladyship's
house." She had all her life delighted in dabbling in
medicine, and playing the doctor. Mr. Price recounts
how, when one 01 Lord Kensington's children, whom
she met during her tour in Wales, inadvertently
swallowed an earring, she was at once ready with " a
prescription for the case, and exact verbal directions
for the proper treatment of the patient." Now, in the
Lebanon, she dispensed black doses with a lavish
hand. She kept by her a whole barrel of Epsom salts,
and woe betide any visitor who was ailing ! A black
dose was at once administered. The Prince swallowed
his at her bidding, though somewhat ungraciously ;
26

386 PRINCE PUCKLER DEPARTS [CH. vm

and it is recorded to the credit of Count Tattenheim's
great good breeding, that "he politely consented to
take another black dose." Surely a striking proof of
her power of will. I have often wondered whether the
doctor himself was subjected to this merciless discipline.
The grim irony of physicking him would have been
very much in her line.

At length came the hour of the Prince's departure,
and with it a parting gift. " Dearest Lady Hester," he
said, " Eastern custom permits the hearer to make a
present to the story-teller, in token of his satisfaction.
I have heard that you are in search of a young slave
girl, and as I know my Ayesha pleases you, will you
allow me to imitate the Persian Prince in your story,
by offering you a black slave, whose good qualities
render her worthy of your acceptance ? If so, I shall
expect you to send for her to-morrow morning ; but
take care of the doctor, in whose good graces she
already stands very high."

" He will only see her," rejoined Lady Hester,
" whenever she needs his professional care. I accept
your gift with thanks, for I confess I have liked the
girl from the moment I saw her."

" I, for my part, was glad to be able to leave a good
and gentle child in the care of the Hermit-Lady of Dar
Joon; but when I afterwards heard of her sudden
death, and that all she left behind was either taken
possession of by the Consular authorities or sold by
public auction, I often speculated, with some self-
reproach, on the uncertain fate of poor Ayesha.J

" My hand was already on the door handle, when
the Lady called after me, 'Don't forget the forty
sleepers at Damascus, the tomb of Sheick Maheddin,
and the grotto of Missisis, near Tarsus ! ' I promised,
and with much emotion, kissed for the last time her
withered, but still beautifully formed and aristocratic
hand."

,PSAnWTaSfnutoL5gmagi> house at Sayda> to be trained by his
wives for Lady Hester's service,

1838] LADY HESTER'S STRATEGY 387

Of these three myths, one, at least, was told with a
distinct purpose, and is quoted by the doctor in illus-
tration of her diplomatic methods. The first time she
sent him to the Prince it was with the following
message :

" ' What I would wish you to talk to him about is
principally the serpent's cave. You must tell him that
at ten or twelve hours' distance from Tarsus there is a
grotto, where once lived an enormous serpent with a
human head, such as he may have seen in paintings,
representing the temptation of Eve. This serpent was
possessed of all the skill in demonology and magic
known on earth. There was an ancient sage, who
was desirous of acquiring this serpent's wisdom, which
he knew could be come at by destroying the serpent :
he therefore induced the king of the country to enter
into his views, and, by the king's orders, the neigh-
bouring peasantry assembled for that purpose. The
sage, who had given instructions that, in killing the
serpent, they were to proceed in a particular manner,
and that the head was to be reserved for him, stationed
himself not far off; and when the peasants went as
asual to carry his food, intending to seize a proper
moment for effecting his destruction, the serpent, being
gifted with the power of speech, said, " I know what
you are come for, you are come to take my life. I am
aware that I am fated to die now, and shall not oppose
it, but in killing me beware how you follow the instruc-
tions which the wicked man who sent you gave — do
exactly the reverse." The peasants obeyed the serpent,
and doing precisely the reverse of what the sage had
enjoined them to do, the king too died. Since then no
other serpent has appeared with a human head, but
several are living in the same grotto, and they still are
fed by the neighbouring villages, which send the food

388 THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA [CH. vm

at stated times, and the people have opportunities of
seeing them with their own eyes.

" ' You must tell the Prince that this story is
perfectly authentic, and that from the time of Sultan
Moorad down to the present day, certain villages are
exempted from taxes in consideration of providing
sustenance for the serpents. As he naturally must
wish to enquire into and see so remarkable a pheno-
menon, you may tell him that, if he puts himself into
a boat, he can land at Tarsus or Swadeja, and thence
find his way a few hours' distance further, where the
grotto is situate.' "

The poor doctor hung his head, and demurred at
being sent on such an errand. But she would not be
gainsaid, and insisted.

" ' Look here — you will talk a great deal about the
serpents, and when you can see a proper opportunity,
and that nobody is likely to hear you, you will say to
the Prince in a low voice, " Lady Hester recommends
you to make some enquiries about the serpents' cave
when you are at Beyrout ; for near to Tarsus is
Kolook Bogaz, where Ibrahim Pacha's army is en-
camped ; you will probably like to see it, and this
will be a good excuse, as everybody then will fancy
you had no political motive in going there." '

" The mystery was out! For two or three months,
Lady Hester had been introducing the story of the
human-headed serpent into her conversations : for
two or three months, she had known of Prince
Pilckler Muskau's coming ; for the same period I had
entertained apprehensions that her reason was im-
paired. M. Guys had been primed in the same way,
and formed the same reflections, and all turned out
to be one of those long-laid plots, for which she was

1838] LADY HESTER ON EDUCATION 389

so famous, to save the Prince from being considered
a spy in the dangerous neighbourhood of two hostile
armies."

The Prince had enquired of the doctor how long he
had been resident in Syria, and how long he intended
to remain. He replied that he hoped to go home
that summer, as he was fairly worn out with fatigue
and worry. " But you will not surely leave my Lady
while she is so ill?" said the Prince. This question
made him feel a little ashamed of himself. He saw
what would be thought of his desertion of a sick
woman, especially at the moment when she was
deprived of her pension, beset with creditors, and
that, for the first time, " his stay with her could be
considered disinterested." He therefore put off his
departure till she was better, and continued reading
to her Lady Charlotte Bury's "Memoirs of a Peeress,"
and writing down her comments. She recognised all
the characters, and had plenty of anecdotes to tell of
them. Nothing pleased and interested her more than
having books read out to her ; and yet one day she
declared to him :

" ' As for me, 1 would destroy all books in a lump.
It was a lucky thing for mankind that the Alexan-
drian library was destroyed ; there was good reason
for what the Caliph did. . . . People read out of one
book, and then out of another, thinking one day
according to one author, and the next day quite the
contrary ; just like teapots, drizzling out of the .spout
what was poured in under the lid.' She told me she
had almost quarrelled with the Prince on the subject
of education. ' Education is all paint — it does not
alter the nature of the wood that lies under it, it only
improves its appearance a little. Why I dislike edu-
cation so much is, that it makes all people alike, until
you have examined into them ; and it sometimes is so
long before you get to see under the varnish ! ' "

39o LADY HESTER ON DOCTORS [CH. vm

The doctor had been sent for in hot haste to the
wife of an English merchant at Beyrout, but she had
died before he could get there, and her husband
now proposed to put the French doctor who had
attended her on his trial, for unprofessional treatment,
which he styled "assassination.' Lady Hester, though
she had never seen him, had sent him a kind letter of
condolence on his loss, and when she heard of the
intended prosecution she wrote again.

« SIR> — if the interest I feel in your unhappmess
gives me any claims on your attention, you must
allow me to make a few remarks on what I am sorry
to hear is about to take place — the bringing Monsieur
G. to a sort of trial, respecting his unsuccessful treat-
ment of your poor wife. I shall speak of it under two
heads : first, that of your being wanting in humanity
and generosity towards a young man coming into the
world, and secondly, that of the great probability of
your being non-suited, which will make you appear
very ridiculous, as well as be the means of bringing
forward many unpleasant and unusual circumstances,
which would excessively shock the delicacy of the
English.

" i. In Mr. Pitt's last illness I expressed as my
opinion, that Sir Walter Farquhar did not understand
the nature of his complaint, and begged him to call in
other physicians. He replied, ' Perhaps you are right,
and such may also be my own opinion ; but if it is the
will of God, I shall remain ; if not, I shall be sorry
that one of the last actions of my life should be that
of injuring the character of a man who has acted to
the best of his knowledge, and hitherto manifested the
greatest interest about my health on all occasions.'
Therefore nothing could be done with him ; but
Farquhar was himself persuaded to call in Dr. Bailey.
Would not it be better to follow the example of that

1838] DJOUN 391

noble-minded man, than cast a slur upon the charac-
ter of one who, unprepared for so difficult an
accouchement, had neither sufficient self-confidence nor
judgment to extricate himself in such a predicament ?
And all this will not recall Mrs. K. again to the world.

" 2. I enclose a paragraph from the papers last come
to hand,1 which, in addition to my knowledge of law,
strengthens my opinion that you may very likely
prove unsuccessful. You will then have to reproach
yourself for not having acted — I will not say, with
the missionaries, with Christian charity, but with that
feeling which ought to belong, and does belong, to
many individuals, whatever religion they may profess.

" Do not understand by this that I am making you
my reproaches, for the state of irritation you are in
proceeds from the frame of mind which this unfor-
tunate circumstance has caused, and which it is the
duty of all those who call themselves your friends and
well-wishers to point out to you, that you may avoid
future remorse when you see things more calmly."

1 The report of a suit in one of the County Courts, in which, under
similar circumstances, the surgeon was acquitted.

CHAPTER IX

DJOUN — MAXIMILIAN, DUKE OF BAVARIA — DEATH AND
BURIAL

1838—1839

TOWARDS the end of May, word was brought to Lady
Hester that a party of pilgrims, who had lost two of
their number from the plague, had been placed in
quarantine outside the town of Sayda. They had
asked to be taken in at the monastery of Dayr
Mkhalla, near Djoun ; but though the monks were
willing to receive them, the health officer refused his
permission, and they remained in tents on the sea-
shore, guarded by a cordon of soldiers. They were
said to be poor Germans ; and Lady Hester, thinking
they might be in want of comforts, packed a couple of
baskets with a supply of rose and violet syrup,
capillaire, lemons, &c., and sent them as " The humble
offering of Lady Hester Stanhope to the sick Germans,
with her request that they will make known their
wants to her, whether for medicines or for whatever
they may need."

But her messenger had scarcely left the house when
a letter arrived from one of the strangers, signed Baron
de Buseck, requesting her to be kind enough to send
her doctor, as a member of the party was ill. Lady
Hester was eager to comply, but the doctor refused
to go. He said he was afraid of the plague, and
thought, as the Germans appeared to be men of rank,
they could easily procure medical attendance from
Sayda. Nothing she could urge was of any avail, and
she had to write a refusal.

11 Although I myself have no fear of the plague, or
of persons infected with it, almost all the Franks have.

392

1838-1839] DJOUN 393

The physician who is with me happens to be one of
the number, therefore it does not depend on me to
cure people of what I consider prejudices. Our days
are numbered, and everything is in the hands of God.
"Your letter is without a date, and comes from I
know not where. At the moment that I received it, I
had sent a servant with a few cooling syrups to some
sick Germans, guarded by a ring of soldiers outside
the town — of whose name and class of life I am
ignorant, although the peasants give out that there are
some of very high quality among them — for I feared
that, in a strange country, and thus surrounded by
fever, and perhaps plague, they would not be able to
procure the drinks necessary in such maladies. I hope
not to have offended anyone, although I have made a
blundering business, not knowing who I addressed
myself to. But having understood that they had
yesterday demanded an asylum in Dayr Mkhalla, which
had been refused them, I was uneasy on their account.
" I have ordered my purveyor at Sayda, Captain
Hassan Logmagi, to come up to-morrow, that I may
get a right understanding of this confused affair, and
may see if it is in my power, by any trifling service, to
be of use to them. Allow me to remark, that if in any
case symptoms of plague, or even of the ardent fevers
of the country, manifest themselves, the Frank doctors
understand but little about it The barbers of the
country are those who have the most knowledge on
the subject.

" This letter goes by the servant who has in charge
the basket of syrups, and whom I had called back
when about ten minutes on his road."

Lady Hester lectured the doctor very severely on
his refusal to attend the poor Baron. But he, well
inured to scoldings, remained unmoved, till a second

394 MAXIMILIAN, DUKE OF BAVARIA [CH. ix

letter, in another hand, arrived from the German camp.
It was very courteous, thanked Lady Hester for her kind
attention, repeated the request that the doctor might
be sent, and was signed Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria.
This 'name acted like a charm, dispelling all the
doctor's fear of the plague ; he was now ready and
anxious to obey the summons, and pay his respects to
"a prince of the blood-royal, the brother-in-law of the
King of Bavaria." Lady Hester's first care was to
have some loaves baked for the Duke, as the bread
made at Sayda was not good. She also sent tea, a
teapot, rum, brandy, and some other things that could
not be got in the town, with this letter :

Lady Hester to Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria

" DjOUN,

"^<zj/27//&, 1838.

" I have been but too much flattered by the good-
ness with which your Royal Highness was pleased to
look on the liberty I have already taken ; it is a proof
of your greatness as well as of your condescension.
Dr. Meryon has made up his mind to present himself
to your Royal Highness, but perhaps on a first visit
he will not say what I presume to do.

" In the first place, the air of the spot where chance
has put you is bad. There is danger of getting a
fever, unless you wrap yourself up well as the evening
closes in, and take, in going to bed, a little brandy and
water, with sugar in it, instead of cooling things : but
what is best of all is a little rum, to prevent the
circulation from becoming languid with the damp, and
to keep up perspiration. Medical books say nothing
of this, nor, generally speaking, have doctors much
knowledge of it : but I have acquired my information
from people who have never been attacked by fever,
although often exposed, from their occupations, to sun
and fatigue. The Germans (who, according to the
traditions of the ancient Arabians, are of exceeding

1838-1839] DJOUN 395

high race) like the kings, their ancestors, are not
brought up idlers : therefore, it seems much more
reasonable to infer that, if they follow the practice of
the laborious, it will suit them better than the system
pursued by indolent beings, who lead a kind of false
existence, and whose complaints are often imaginary,
or the consequences of their own prejudices. In
fevers of the country one cannot drink too much of
cooling things, or of cold water, for if, during one or
two days previous to trying any remedies intended to
excite the circulation, refreshing beverages are not
taken, internal inflammation comes on, which carries
off a man in a few hours. Bleeding is almost never to
be feared in this country.

" Pardon me for thus having made myself a doctor :
but it is necessary that your Royal Highness should
have some insight into what is most necessary to
observe in a climate which is a very wholesome one, if
a person knows how to accustom himself to it."

The doctor paid his professional visit to the Baron,
and had an interview with Duke Maximilian, who was
" most condescending," and asked him to examine his
black Mameluke, then desperately ill. His own
physician had died of the plague at Nazareth, and it
was feared this poor negro had caught the infection.
The doctor examined him at a safe distance (he went
no nearer than 5 ft.), but could not decide whether the
case was plague or typhus. Subsequently, however,
another doctor who was called in pronounced it to be
typhus, and thus freed the party from quarantine. On
June 7th, when Dr. Meryon, by Lady Hester's desire,
came to watch the effects of seventeen black doses that
she had forwarded to them the night before, he found
the camp broken up, and the released prisoners
jubilant. (Had they profited by her liberality as
regarded the seventeen black doses? I hope and
believe they had not.) The Duke announced that " his
first duty was to wait upon Lady Hester, and to thank
her, and desired the doctor to let him know when she

396 A MODERN DIOGENES [CH. ix

would permit him to pay his respects." Lady Hester
wrote accordingly :

Lady Hester to Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria

" I cannot sufficiently appreciate the honour you
intend me in wishing to visit my hermitage : but
permit me to impose these conditions upon you — that
you say not a word more, neither you nor the noble-
men in your suite, of those trifling services which you
have so graciously and benevolently accepted. Allow
me also to acquaint your Royal Highness, that,
although I was in my time a woman of the world, for
these last twenty years I have been nothing but a
philosopher, who turns out of her road for nobody.
When Alexander the Great visited Diogenes, he
neither changed his dress nor moved his tub for him :
pardon me, Prince, if I imitate his example.

" There was a time when my house was passable :
but now there are many rooms in ruins for want of
repairs, especially a large pavilion in the garden,
tumbling down from an earthquake : so that I could
not lodge more than three or four persons at a time.
What lodging I have for you is, first of all, a little
garden on the east side of my residence, with a small
saloon, and outside of the door two mustabys " (raised
stone benches) "where two persons might sleep.
Adjoining the saloon is a bedroom ; and at the back of
it a sleeping room for two valets, with mattresses on
the floor, according to the custom of the country. The
saloon has a trellis in front. Just out of the garden
gate is a little place to make coffee, or boil water for
shaving; and opposite to it is another room for
ordinary strangers, where two persons can sleep, and
where Count Tattenbach was lodged. For the other
servants there is room in one of the courtyards. As

1838-1839] DJOUN 397

for my own divan, it has been in a ruinous state for
some years, and I inhabit at present a badly furnished
little room.

" I beg your Royal Highness will consider the little
garden, and the pavilion in it, which I have just men-
tioned, as your own, until the ship which you expect
arrives. You can make your excursions in the Moun-
tain when you like. With you, you can bring two or
three of the gentlemen of your suite, and these can
make room for others in their turn. Only, I hope that
the Baron and Count Gaiety, as I call him (for,
according to what the doctor tells me, during all your
misfortunes he has always preserved his cheerfulness),
will not come both together, because I have got a
great deal to say to each. Thus, then, I shall expect
your Royal Highness on Saturday evening."

Everything that it was possible to do was done to
prepare for the Duke's reception : and on the Saturday
morning all was ready, and the servants, dressed in
their best clothes, awaited his coming. But it found
poor Lady Hester in a high fever, with a torturing
pain in her side : she told the doctor she had passed a
sleepless night, and that he must go and inform the
Duke how ill she was, and that it was quite impossible
for her to receive him. The Duke had already
reached the monastery at Djoun when the doctor met
him. He expressed the greatest concern at hearing of
Lady Hester's illness, and at once turned back to
Sayda, where, by good fortune, he found the steamer
he expected just arrived, and embarked for Europe.
Before he left, he asked the doctor whether Lady
Hester would be displeased if he sent her his portrait.
" She could not but be pleased," the doctor opined.
But he was quite wrong. When he told her of it, she
said : " No ; I must write to him and prevent his
sending it " ; and she did.

Her fever abated after she had been bled, and during
the next few weeks she was able to receive three
visitors, none of whom were introduced to the doctor.

THREE VISITORS [CH. ix

The first was the great Oriental scholar, Dr. Laove ;
the second she discovered to be a Russian soy, from
the Embassy at Constantinople : " and the Russians
employ such clever men, doctor, that I thought it best
you should not see him ; for he would have pumped
you without your suspecting his design"; and the
third was an English country squire, of whom she
gave a comical account :

11 He asked me if I knew the Emir Beshyr, and when
I was giving him some information about him, all of a
sudden he asked me if I liked dancing when I lived in
England. He goes from one thing to another, like a
dog in a fair, just like a dog that goes from one booth
to another, sniffing here and there, and stealing ginger-
bread nuts. When he sat with me in the evening, he
was constantly turning his head to the window, which
was open, as if he thought somebody was coming in
that way."

Travelling was rapidly becoming dangerous, if not
impracticable ; for a formidable Druse insurrection
had broken out in the Lebanon, and the country
swarmed with marauders and deserters. The in-
surgents were now within a day's march of Djoun ;
cattle had been carried off in the neighbourhood ; the
monks had packed up their valuables, and sent them
down to Sayda ; and the terrified villagers were pre-
paring to desert their homesteads. Lady Hester sent
them word they were to remain where they were, and
nothing should happen to them. " I foretold all this,"
she said to the doctor, " in a short time you will not be
able to ride from here to Sayda : the country will be
over-run with armed men, but I shall be as cool, from
first to last, as at a fete. All the cowards may go : I
want those who can send a ball where I direct them.
Why do I keep such men as Seyd Ahmed and some
others? You wanted me to get rid of them, and
blamed me because I kept such fellows about me. I
knew the time would come when they would be
useful, as you will see." He spoke of precautions that
ought to be taken. " Oh ! " she said, " I don't fear ; I

1838-1839] AN OFFICIAL DESPATCH 399

would throw all my doors open, if the Druses were on
the outside, and should not be afraid that any one
would touch me." The old defiant spirit had not died
out in her. She was as ready as ever for the fray : as
prompt to act, as daring and resolute, as she had
always been. Changed in all else, she was unchanged
in this ; broken down in health and fortune, she was
still the same dauntless woman who had challenged
her enemies to do their worst, with the threatening
message : " If they want a devil, let them try me ! "

But, courageous as she was, her home troubles and
anxieties told grievously upon her, for the wound
inflicted by Col. Campbell's letter had struck very
deep. She was excessively anxious that her corre-
spondence on the subject should be published, and
worried by its non-appearance in the papers. " Who
knows?" she cried. " rerhaps Prince Piickler Muskau,
after all his pretended interest in my affairs, has never
sent the correspondence to Europe * : he told you in
three months we should see the letters in the papers,
and yet the papers neither come, nor do we hear from
him. Do you think, after this, one can have any
confidence in anybody ? " Meanwhile, Lord Palmer-
stpn's answer to her letter had come, and is here given,
with her rejoinder.

Lord Palmerston to Lady Hester

"FOREIGN OFFICE,

« April *yh, 1838.

" MADAM, — I am commanded by the Queen to ac-
quaint you that I have laid before Her Majesty your
letter of the i2th February of this year.

" It has been my duty to explain to Her Majesty the
circumstances which may be supposed to have led to
your writing that letter, and I have now to state to
your Ladyship that any communications which have
been made to you on the matters to which your letter
refers, either through the friends of your family or
through Her Majesty's Agent and Consul-General at

1 He tells us in his diary that he considered the letters too dis-
respectful in their tone for publication.

4oo A SPIRITED REJOINDER [CH. ix

Alexandria, have been suggested by nothing but a
desire to save your Ladyship from the embarrassments
which might arise, if the parties who have claims
upon you were to call upon the Consul-General to act
according to the strict line of his duty, under the
capitulations between Great Britain and the Porte.
" I have the honour to be, Madam,

" Your Ladyship's most obedient,
" Humble Servant,

" PALMERSTON."

Lady Hester to Lord Palmerston

"DJOUN, MOUNT LEBANON,

"July ist, 1838.

"Mv LORD, — If your diplomatic despatches are as
obscure as the one which now lies before me, it is no
wonder that England should cease to have that proud
preponderance in her foreign relations, which she once
could boast of.

" Your Lordship tells me that you have thought it
your duty to explain to the Queen the subject which
caused me to address Her Majesty. I should have
thought, my Lord, that it would have been your duty
to have made those explanations prior to having taken
the liberty of using Her Majesty's name, and alienating
from her and her country a subject who, the great and
small must acknowledge (however painful it may be to
some), has raised the English name in the East higher
than anyone has yet done, and this without having
spent one farthing of public money. Whatever may
be the surprise created in the minds of statesmen of
the old school respecting the conduct of Government
towards me, I am not myself the least astonished, for
when the son of a king, with a view of enlightening
his own mind and that of the world in general, had

1838-1839] A SPIRITED REJOINDER 401

devoted part of his private fortune to the purchase of
a most invaluable library at Hamburg, he was flatly
refused an exemption from the Custom-house duties ;
but (if report speaks true), had an application been
made to pass band-boxes, millinery, inimitable wigs,
and invaluable rouge, it would have been instantly
granted by Her Majesty's Ministers, if we may judge
by precedents. Therefore, my Lord, I have nothing
to complain of. Yet I shall go on fighting my battles,
campaign after campaign.

" Your Lordship gives me to understand that the
insult which I have received was considerately
bestowed upon me, to avoid some dreadful unname-
able misfortune which was pending over my head. I
am ready to meet with courage and resignation every
misfortune it may please God to visit me with, but
certainly not insult from man. If I can be accused of
high crimes and misdemeanours, and that I am to stand
in dread of the punishment thereof, let me be tried, as
I believe I have a right to be, by my peers ; if not, then
by the voice of the people. Disliking the English
because they are no longer English— no longer that
hardy, honest, bold people that they were in former
times — yet, as some few of this race must remain, I
should rely with confidence on their integrity and
justice, when my case had been fully examined.

" It is but fair to make your Lordship aware that, if
by the next packet there is nothing definitely settled
respecting my affairs, and that I am not cleared in the
eyes of the world of aspersions, intentionally or
unintentionally cast upon me, I shall break up my
household, and build up the entrance gate to my
premises, there remaining, as if I were in a tomb, till
my character has been done justice to, and a public
acknowledgment put in the papers, signed and sealed
27

4t)2 PITT BLOOD [CH. ix

by those who have aspersed me. There is no trifling
with those who have Pitt blood in their veins upon the
subject of integrity, nor expecting that their spirit
would ever yield to the impertinent interference of
Consular authority.

"Meanly endeavouring (as Colonel Campbell has
attempted to do) to make the origin of this business
an application of the Viceroy of Egypt to the English
Government, I must, without having made any
enquiries upon this subject, exculpate his Highness
from so low a proceeding. His known liberality in all
such cases, from the highest to the lowest class of
persons, is such as to make one the more regret his
extraordinary and reprehensible conduct towards his
great Master, and that such a man should become
totally blinded by vanity and ambition, which must in
the end prove his own perdition, an opinion I have
loudly given from the beginning.

" Your Lordship talks to me of the capitulations
with the Sublime Porte. What has that to do with a
private individual having exceeded his finances, in
trying to do good ? If there is any punishment for
that, you had better begin with your ambassadors,
who have often indebted themselves at the different
Courts of Europe, as well as at Constantinople. I
myself am so attached to the Sultan that, were the
reward of such conduct that of losing my head, I
should kiss the sabre wielded by so mighty a hand,
yet, at the same time, treat with the most ineffable
contempt your trumpery agents, as I should never
admit of their having the smallest power over me ; if I
did, I should belie my origin.

" HESTER LUCY STANHOPE."

The servant who carried this letter to Sayda was
instructed to wait till the English steamer came in, in

1838-! 839] DJOUN 403

case it should bring something for Lady Hester. It
brought Sir Francis Burdett's long-hoped-for answer.
But she no longer looked forward to it as she once
had done. She had waited for it so long and so vainly,
that her persistent hopefulness as to its contents had
given way. Good news should surely not have been
so long on the road. She had expected it when she
was lying ill of her fever in June ; tnen, as usual, she
had been disappointed, and, weak and prostrate as she
then was, the disappointment seemed worse to bear
than it had ever been. She turned impatiently in her
bed, crying, " Oh, Lord ! the die is cast. Doctor, the
sooner you take yourself off the better. I have no
money. You can be of no use to me. I shall write no
more letters — shall break up my establishment, wall
up my gate, and, with a girl and boy to wait upon me,
resign myself to my fate." Her fits of despondency,
however, never lasted long ; a reaction generally set
in on the following day, and the doctor always thought
it best to leave her to herself. He could neither cheer
nor comfort her; it was her own sanguine tempera-
ment, her own buoyant spirits, that came to the
rescue, and coloured and brightened the gloomiest of
prospects. She had full faith in the star that guided
her destiny, and was to lead her, through many
vicissitudes, to the triumph and success that had been
so long foretold.

" I am," she said, " like the man in the Eastern
story, who, imprisoned in a dungeon, and nearly
starved to death, found in a poor sailor an old
acquaintance, who conveyed to him secretly a basin of
warm soup, but just as he was putting it to his mouth,
a rat fell from the ceiling, and knocked it out of his
hand. Reduced thus to the lowest pitch of wretched-
ness, and seeing nothing left for him but to die, at the
critical moment came a firman from Constantinople to
cut off the head of the pasha who had thrown him into
prison, and he was saved. So it is with me. I cannot
be worse off than I am ; I shall, therefore, when the
next steamboat comes, see what it brings, and, if I hear

4o4 BAD NEWS [CH. ix

no news about the property that was left me, I shall
get rid of you and everybody, and of all the women,
and, with one black slave and Logmagi, I shall order
the gateway to be walled up, leaving only room
enough for my cows to go in and out to pasture, and I
shall have no communication with any human being.
1 shall write to Lord Palmerston before you go, and tell
him that, as he has thrown an aspersion on my name, I
shall remain walled in until he publicly removes it.
And if he, or anybody, writes to me, there will be no
answer, for when you are gone, I shall have nobody to
write for me. This sort of life, perhaps, will suit me
best, after all. I have often wished that I could have
a room in my garden, and, lying there with only some
necessary covering, slip from my bed as I was into the
garden, and after a turn or two, slip back again. I do
assure you I should be neither low-spirited nor dull."

When Sir Francis Burdett's long-delayed answer at
last came, it found her, in a great measure, prepared
for bad news, and it brought her the very worst. All
her hopes of the Irish estate, on which she had
founded so many projects and expectations, were
relentlessly dashed to the ground. Yet the doctor
found her calm and composed, unshaken in her belief
regarding her inheritance, and only occupied in
finding excuses for her old friend. " It is evident,
doctor," said she, " that he could not write what he
wanted to write. He wishes me all the happiness
that a mortal can share, but says not a word that I did
not know before." Here is her reply :

Lady Hester to Sir Francis Burdett

" DJOUN,

"July 2oM, 1838.

" MY DEAR BURDETT,— I am no fool, neither are you,
but you might pass for one, if in good earnest you did
not understand my letter. You tell me what is self-
evident— that I have no right to inherit Colonel

1838-1839] LADY HESTER'S RESOLVE 405

Needham's property, etc. ; neither has your daughter any
right to inherit Mr. Coutts' property ; but, in all proba-
bility, his wife, being aware that you and your family
stood high in his estimation, paid that compliment to his
memory. Lord Kilmorey, who had no children, being
aware of Colonel Needham's partiality towards Mr.
Pitt, might, by his will, have allowed the property to
return to the remaining branch of the Pitt family. Do
not be afraid that I am going to give you any fresh
trouble about this affair, notwithstanding I believe
you were some time hatching this stupid answer, but
I do not owe you any grudge, as I know it does not
come from you ; I know where it comes from.

"A lion of the desert, being caught in the hunts-
man's net, called in vain to the beasts in the field to
assist him, and received from them about as shuffling
an answer as I have received from you, and previously
from Lord Hardwicke. A little field-mouse gnawed
the master-knot, and called to the lion to make a great
effort, which burst the noose, and out came the lion
stronger than eVer.

" I am now about building up every avenue to my
premises, and there shall wait with patience, immured
within the walls, till it please God to send me a little
mouse, and whoever presumes to force my retirement,
by scaling my walls or anything of the like, will be
received by me as Lord Camelford would have
received them."

She had quite determined to part with the doctor,
and most, if not all, of her servants, now that the
funds to maintain her establishment were no longer
forthcoming. The doctor had already made up his
mind to go as soon as she was a little better, but yet
he admits that he felt great reluctance in leaving her
" without a single European near her, or a single
servant on whom she could depend," and he must

406 THE DOCTOR'S DESERTION [CH. ix

have known how severely his conduct would be
judged. She herself was generously anxious to
screen him from blame, and told him he had better
write to Baron de Buseck or Count Wilsenheim,
" that they may not think you left me unprotected,
for you know how apt people are to put a bad con-
struction on everything." It is certain that she
insisted on his departure, and that it was hard to
oppose her will, but how he could find it in his heart
to go, and leave her in such an evil plight, is more
than I can understand. She had now to face the
world alone, and without a single friend. She had no
money. The war between the Druses and the Pasha
was raging more fiercely than ever ; all the country
round was in a disturbed and dangerous state, and
there was no one to stand by her — no human being
for her to depend upon except herself. Her health
had, indeed, improved ; the fever had left her, and her
cough was easier, as it always was during the summer
months, but the doctor knew well enough what lay
before her in the coming winter. He had written
only a month or two before, " She is saved for this

¥*ar; what another might do is in the hands of God."
he last winter had been terrible, and this one was to
find her without medical attendance or comforts, with
no one to nurse and wait upon her but idle and unwill-
ing slave girls, who fled from the sound of her bell.
Unable to use her own weak eyes without great
suffering, she was to be left with no one to read to her
or write for her ; no one to save her trouble, or help
her in difficulty ; no one to come and sit with her
during her long nightly vigils ; no one to whom she
could speak in her mother tongue. She was to be
virtually a prisoner — shut out from all communication
with the outer world. What worse fate could her
bitterest enemy have imagined for her ? Yet the man
who doomed her to it was a friend of twenty-eight
years' standing, who invariably professed the greatest
possible gratitude and devotion. Here are some of the
effusions he sent her after his departure :

Dr. Meryon to Lady Hester

" I am grown old. I never had but one kind and
sure friend in the world, and were one of your cats

1838-1839] LUCUBRATIONS 407

(much as I hate cats) to fall into my hands, and
wanted a house over its head, I would fold it to my
bosom because it had been yours. 'Tis at a distance,
when all the scoldings are forgotten, or only
recollected to feel how just they were, that I think
of your noble mind, your disinterested integrity, your
undaunted spirit, and your pious resignation to the
will of God — and then I sink into my own nothing-
ness. My heart is full of your Ladyship's goodness, and
I still hope I am worthy to be your devoted servant.
. . . Do not imagine for a moment that I ever expected
any civil remarks in return for what I say. I am like
a poor man who, when burthened with a heavy load,
feels happy to relieve himself of the weight of it by
unloading it at its destination, but, in so doing, he
merits no thanks — he has only done his duty. Any
attempt of mine to make fine speeches to a refined
understanding like yours would be like a street
fiddler's trying to amuse Mozart. I am all humility
now, and feel myself almost unworthy to pray for so
exalted a being as yourself, much more to identify
myself with your sufferings in health, by any sorrow
I can feel. My regrets deserve no acknowledgment
— only let me now and then pour them out upon
paper."

These lucubrations, as a context to his conduct, must
have considerably amused "the exalted being" to whom
they were addressed.

No time was lost in preparing for the doctor's
departure ; yet a month elapsed before he was ready
to go. Lady Hester utilized the interval for her
correspondence, as it was the last opportunity she
would ever have of dictating letters, and it was both
painful and difficult for her to write herself. She had
recently received, after the lapse of many years, a com-
munication from one of her family. Colonel Hazeta,
returning home on leave, had brought her a letter from

4o8 THE DRUSE INSURRECTION [CH. ix

a son of Lady Lucy's,1 then serving in India ; but
I fear she left it unnoticed. The following descriptions
of the Druse insurrection were addressed to " Count
Gaiety" (as she called him) and Baron de Buseck.

Lady Hester to Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria
41 1 am happy that H.R.H. quitted this country when
he did, not because of the plague— the season was
gone by this year for that— but because of the aspect
of affairs, and of the Druse insurrection, which has
grown considerably hotter, and which would have
made it impossible to travel with any comfort.

" Ibrahim Pacha began the war in the Horan with
forty-five thousand men ; the Druses had but seven
thousand, assisted by some tribes of the Arabs of the
desert. Ibrahim Pacha has lost thirty thousand, be-
tween Nizam troops (as they are called), Sugmans.
and Albanians, without reckoning the wounded. The
Druses' army, I believe, does not at present exceed
two thousand five hundred men ; but each man of that
two thousand five hundred is singly worth twenty.
The last seat of the war was about fourteen leagues
distant in a straight line from my residence. The
Druses, after having well beaten Ibrahim Pacha, and
killed some of his officers, retreated to the Horan,
pursued by the Pacha.

"You no doubt are aware that H.H. the Pacha, in
concert with the Emir Beshyr, disarmed the Druses
some time ago by a stratagem, which gave the
Government means to take their sons for conscripts for
the Nizam. After that, they in like manner disarmed

1 There is a story told of the eldest of these nephews, which is
curiously characteristic of Lady Hester's methods. As a little child
he was fractious and troublesome : but invariably on his best behaviour
when she was in the room. Someone noticed this, and asked her to
explain it. " Oh !" she cried, " that is very simple. One day that he
misbehaved himself with me, I opened the window, lifted him up, and
held him out at arm's length, saying, ' Now, remember, if ever you do
that again, next time I shall let you drop.' "

1838-1839] M- GUYS 409

the Christians ; but necessity has compelled the Pacha
lately to give them their arms again, in order to enable
the son of the Emir Beshyr to join the Pacha's forces
with a reinforcement of Christians, which he stood in
need of, to garrison the skirts of the mountain on the
side of the Bkaa. The Druses killed a great many of
these Christians, and they could have annihilated
them, but they said to them : ' You are not to blame ;
it goes against us to exterminate you, for we have
always lived with you on friendly terms, but we will
slay without pity every Christian we find in arms,
excepting those of the Mountain.'

" The French Government has done an imprudent
thing in removing Mr. Consul Guys from his post at
Beyrout, because that gentleman had very extensive
connections among the bishops and priests, and all
the numerous sects of Christians found on Mount
Lebanon, and by his information and experience, had
means of giving them good advice. For if, by chance,
those Christians gave heed to bad counsel, it might
not be impossible that half the Franks who inhabit
this country would be massacred. ... I have a great
esteem for M. Guys, but I see him so seldom, that
whether he is far or near, it is pretty much the same
to me. As for the Christians here, I do not interest
myself more about them than about other men— per-
haps less, not on account of their religion, but of their
qualities, of which egotism and perfidy are marked
characteristics in most of them. As a religion is with
me neither more nor less than a costume of adoration,
it is all one whether it is green, white, blue, or black.
To me, it is all the same whether a man prostrates
himself before a piece of wood, or a cockle-shell, as
the Metonalis do, provided his heart addresses itself
to the Almighty.

4io CIVIL WAR [CH. ix

" Perhaps for saying this, you will have me crucified
by the Pope. Never mind, if it is my lot I shall not
repine, since whatever is decreed must necessarily
happen ; but it is not necessary, for all that, by a want
of policy, to make civil wars break out, which would
do no good to anybody, and which would not turn to
any account even for those who stirred them up. . . .

" When the Druses found out that the Pacha's
artillery in the valleys cut them up dreadfully, and that
personal courage was of no value, they retreated to the
Horan, where the inequality of the ground was more
favourable to them. At this moment, Ibrahim Pacha
is in pursuit of them, and has given orders to his
Bedouin robbers, whom he brought from Egypt (a
tribe that is called the Hanaady), to run down the
greatest hero the Druses have got, and to bring him
alive; being so struck with the courage of the man,
that he would willingly employ him in his own service.
Poor Pacha ! I fancy he has made a bad calculation
in thinking that one of the family of Arrian, men
accustomed, like their ancestors, to rule with sovereign
authority in their castle at Gendal, would ever become
a vile slave to save his life. Shibly el Arrian is not
only a hero in battle, but a Demosthenes in council ;
he makes even the great tremble by the language he
holds.

"An order has just been issued by the Emir Beshyr,
to search the dwellings of the Druses for concealed
arms, and to take from them their horses ; this is, at
best, a great piece of imprudence, because, seeing that
many of the cavaliers would sooner fly than give up
their horses, he will thus increase the number of
insurgents in the Horan. Ibrahim Pacha, with the
wreck of his army, of which he has lost full 30,000,
without counting the wounded, ca.rj.npt, if he does not

1838-1839] DR. MERYON'S LEAVE-TAKING 411

soon make peace and come to some composition, do
much more with the Druses.

" This is the state of affairs at the present moment ;
but it is difficult to get at the truth. Even your friend
L., if he knows anything, dares not avow it ; but what
such sort of people know is so little — their information
is so confined, they are all so ignorant of the true
character, the projects, and of the resources of the
different races that inhabit Syria — that the reasonings
they make are about as false as a fairy-tale."

This was the last letter the doctor ever wrote for
her. As the day of his departure drew nearer, poor
Lady Hester's heart misgave her, and she was very
loth to let him go. The appalling solitude that awaited
her rose up like a spectre before her, and she could
not forbear to wish it delayed. She often spoke of
her approaching end. " I shall not die in my bed,"
she would say, " and I had rather not ; my brothers
did not, and I have always had a feeling that my end
would be in blood — that does not frighten me in the
least." The prospect she quailed from was the life
that lay before her.

The doctor put off going for three days longer ; then,
on August 6th, he " took an affectionate leave of her,
and never saw her more." The two Eugenias, mother
and daughter, who had never once seen her during
their fifteen months' stay, were dissolved in tears on
leaving, as they had been on arriving. Half way to
Sayda they were overtaken by a messenger bringing
a small Turkey carpet that Lady Hester, ever mindful
of their comfort, had sent for them to spread on the
floor of their cabin.

Before they left, she had carried out her intention
of walling up her gate, leaving only an opening large
enough to admit a cow or a beast of burden, as her
water supply had to be brought in from without.
Here she remained immured till her death, a self-
constituted prisoner.

Henceforward all we know of her dreary hermit-life
is through her letters, and she wrote very few. Once
a month, she generally sent one to the doctor, giving

4i2 A SICK HOUSEHOLD [CH. ix

him commissions and instructions, but not telling him
much about herself. She writes in October :

Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon

" Everybody is laid up here ; Logmagi with a bad
fever, as also Mustafa and the cow-boy; Mohammed
with a fit of the gout, unable to walk or stir ; Fato6m,
half with whims, always under the coverlet ; Zezef6on
ill, but keeping to her work. The early rain has
caused illness everywhere. . . . The Mountain is in a
very disturbed'state ; but my habitation is well walled
in, and the weight of all on poor me, as Logmagi is
at Sayda.

" So far till to-day ; afterwards I shall not be able to
give you any account of myself, as I suffer so by
writing. The spectacles always cause me such vast
pain, that I cannot stand it ; and besides, it lasts all
day, or next day. . . . Mr. M., whom you did not see
at Cyprus, has offered to serve me as secretary, and to
arrange my servants, he living at his own expense at
Djoun, or some other village ; but, as he refused all
salary, I could not do otherwise than refuse his offer."

Lady Hester to Lord Hardwicke

" DJOUN,

" October 2lst, 1838.

" DEAR LORD HARDWICKE, — The most infernal cold-
hearted quiz might have written your first letter;
a Yorke only the last. If you wish to serve me (which
I believe you do), sell my pension to Government,
to an individual, or by auction ; also the annuity my
brother left me, for the interest has brought up my
debts to a very large sum. You will say — What are
you to do ? Never enquire that ; the Divine Being
who inspired me to act as I have done, who has
supported me through all my dreadful trials, will not

1838-1839] DJOUN 413

forsake me. Let me hear by the return of the vapour
if you will kindly undertake this business, or not. If
not, I have this resource, which I shall make use of
most speedily — to put all my affairs into the hands
of a stranger, and let him do his best ; if he only sells
for half its value, it is all, and the creditors must take
so much in the pound. You will say, vast expense ;
recollect that millions have gone for the same purpose,
but to no avail. You may treat me as an imposture ;
think and say as you like of me, but guide me none
shall, therefore all reasoning is in vain when I have
made up my mind. I know I have property in Ire-
land, with all the stupid shuffles made about it, and
on that subject I shall say no more. As to the
Government, Lord P. has acted like a blackguard to
allow of a dirty agent to threaten me ; but I have not
done with him, and he will hereafter see, those who
have Pitt blood in their veins are no swindlers, nor
are they cowards, or will they bear a threat even
from a crowned head. You know I am no longer an
English subject ; I would rather live under a Hottentot
king, than be subjected to the caprice of a childish queen,
governed by such ministers. They may some day
expect Fox's ghost to give them a good box in the
ear, for it is certain he would be quite shocked and
ashamed at any of his party having acted as they
have done. I have no fear of all those horrors which
you have painted in such gloomy colours ; I have seen
worse than all that. I have requested a medical man,
Dr. Meryon, to send you a sort of certificate about
my health ; all nonsense, for no one understands my
health more than they do my character; but as a
form the paper may be useful. Should you see the
Doctor in England, recollect that his only good quality
in my sight is, I believe, being very honest in money

4i4 LADY HESTER ON DR. MERYON [CH. ix

matters ; no other do I grant him ; without judgment,
without heart, he goes through the world, like many
others, blundering his way ; and often, from his want
of accuracy, doing mischief every time he opens his
mouth. I must now tell you, that a Turk who held
a bond of mine, expressed among his friends some
fears about the payment, when he heard my pension
was to be stopped, etc., etc. One of the party flew
into a passion, and said, ' If you fear, take the money
from me.' He said, ' Very well.' It was fetched im-
mediately, and the bond sent to me. This sum was
all the ready money the man could command, but he
offered instantly to sell land worth about £1000, if
I was short of money, adding, ' I am only doing my
duty ; she has ever served us when in distress ; she
is a universal blessing, which we must preserve for
our own sakes.' If I do not repay this man the
beginning of February, I shall ruin his affairs greatly.
There is likewise another I must pay at that time ;
as for the old standing usurers, let them wait. I
must have credit for £3000 in February. There is
£900 of my (pension) I have given as yet no certifi-
cate for, and is undrawn ; that, insure my life with
for ten years, and quickly sell the pension. I suffer
greatly when I write, therefore do not expect re-
peated letters, for I cannot stand it ; only do not fail
to let me know my fate ; to sell one farthing, or pay
one penny in any other way but the one I have here
named I will not put my hand to. All reasoning,
etc., will be in vain ; and I should wish to know by
what law I am to be proved not at liberty to do with
that which belongs to me as 1 think proper — because,
perhaps, Mr. Pitt thought me a fool, and unable either
to judge or to act for myself. Shame upon you all !
had you been gentlemen, you would have sent me a

1838-1839] "MEN ARE BEASTS" 4*5

man like Mr. Dundas, the judge in India ; Capt.
Swinburne, formerly of the Rapid ; or Capt. Brown,
aide-de-camp to Lord Nugent — all admirable men.
Had you put a dozen padlocks on their tongues, it
was all one to me ; I wanted their ears only. Will
you tell the Duke of Sussex that I strongly recommend
to him Dr. Mills, lately come from India, as one of the
most sound-headed, learned men I have met with.
I wished to have much conversation with him, but
there was no time ; yet I saw enough to judge of what
he knew, if brought out. As to the Duke's little Jew,
he has much merit as an active, enterprising man, but
little judgment. I doubt if he does not often deceive
himself. You may perhaps have also heard, that I
have built up the entrance to my habitation, that I
may see no one, and until Lord P. and his squad may
think it proper to make me a public apology for having
thus cast an odium upon my character, and having
dared to order or to connive at a threat being used
towards me : and by whom ? — a dirty, venal agent of
theirs. I have written these two lines to Coutts'
house ; like other people, they treat me in a strange
way ; but it is all one in the end.

" Adieu, my dear Lord Hardwicke, the time will
come when the world will produce rivals in sensibility ;
at present men are beasts, worse than beasts. I should
have been miserable to have been obliged to rank you
with many others. God bless you, and reward you
for the many kind actions you have done, and believe
no one more sensible of your conduct than —

" Your affectionate,

" H. L. S."

Lord Hardwicke communicated this letter to my
father, who replied as follows :

416 LADY HESTER'S SOLE CHAMPION [CH. ix

Lord Stanhope to Lord Hardwicke

" All that I could do in this business is to write to
Lord Palmerston, when I could either mention or
suppress your name, as you might prefer, to state that
I have seen a letter from Hester, requesting that
money might be raised upon her pension for the
payment of her debts, and to express my hope, that
under these circumstances he will authorize the
Consul to sign, as heretofore, the usual certificates,
and to inform the Egyptian authorities that she is
taking measures to satisfy her creditors. Pray let
me know what you think of this proposal, and whether
you would permit me to mention your name."

I fear this application was without result. The
publication of her correspondence, which Lady
Hester had so greatly at heart, was carried out, ac-
cording to her directions, by the doctor. She had
persuaded herself that her cause had only to become
Known to excite the warmest sympathy, and enlist
public opinion on her side. She dreamed of unknown
champions, starting up to assert her rights, and
redress her wrongs ; of her enemies put to shame,
and a triumphant vindication of her character. But
in this, as in all else, she was doomed to deception
and disappointment, for what happened was exactly
the reverse. The press proved bitterly hostile. So
far from espousing her cause, the papers had nothing
but ridicule and abuse for her. One champion alone
she found in Sir William Napier, who, roused to great
indignation by the insults heaped on his old friend,
chivalrously came forward, and took up the cudgels in
her defence.

" To the Editor of The Times.

" SIR, — The correspondence of Lady Hester
Stanhope, recently published in The Times, has given
occasion for mirth with some unthinking people. It
may in the end be found a serious matter.

1838-1839] LADY HESTER'S SOLE CHAMPION 417

" This ' crack-brained lady,' as some of your con-
temporaries — falling, with the true instinct of
baseness, upon what appeared to them a helpless
and afflicted woman — have called her, may appear,
judged by English customs, somewhat wild in her
views and expressions ; but in the East she is, as she
well deserves to be, for her nobleness and virtues
revered. Her influence is vast with the Arab tribes,
and with all those who have suffered from Ibrahim's
army, or who sigh over the tottering condition of the
Turkish empire. She, more than any person, can
secure to England the friendship of nations whose
goodwill must be vitally essential to our interests,
when— and the time must soon come — we have to
contend with Russia for the independence of the
Porte. And if her disposition was not too noble,
too magnanimous, to seek such revenge, English
travellers in the East might bitterly rue the insults
offered to Lady Hester Stanhope.

" It is no idle vaunt, no ' cracked-brained ' threat,
for her to say ' the gauntlet has been thrown down
before no driveller or coward.' To more than woman's
quickness of perception, intuitive judgment and forti-
tude, she adds more than man's sagacity, intrepidity,
and daring. The extent of her power and resolution
may be understood too late. If driven, by insult, to
active enmity, she can, and will, do more of hurt to the
interests of England in the East — ay, more of hurt than
the pitiful policy of Lord Palmerston has already done
in that quarter. Her policy will stir men's feelings.
It will bear no resemblance to that which has sent the
British fleet to Malta when it should have been in the
Dardanelles, to support the Sultan's treaty of com-
merce, and in compensation rigorously maintain the
Sultan's capitulations of commerce, by directing the
28

4i8 GOOD ADVICE [CH. ix

British Consuls to persecute and insult an isolated,
and, as it is erroneously supposed, a helpless woman.
" It may be asked, what have I to do with the
matter? In early life I was an inmate of Mr. Pitt's
house, when Lady Hester Stanhope was the mistress
of it, and when those, who now insult her, would have
been too happy to lick the dust from her shoes. The
hospitality, the kindness, the friendship I then experi-
enced from Lady Hester did not cease with Mr. Pitt's
death, nor by me are they forgotten ; nor is the
friendship which subsisted between my family and
her gallant brothers, Charles and James Stanhope,
while they lived.

" I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,

" W. F. P. NAPIER, Colonel.
"FRESHFIELD, NEAR BATH, December tfh, 1838."

Her cough had, as usual, returned in full force in
the winter, and she was— again as usual — beset with
domestic worries. Unfortunately she had not carried
out her intention of parting with most of her servants,
and she was still surrounded by the same worthless
and tormenting crew.

M. Guys to Lady Hester

" ALEPPO,
"January lotA, 1839.

" Je vois avec peine que votre toux est revenue, et
qu'elle vous fatigue beaucoup; cependant il depend
de vous de la calmer. Puisqu'elle est due a 1'irritation
que vous causent vos gens, il n'est pas un seul remede
a la chose, j'en vois deux : renvoyez ceux qui vous
inquietent, ou bien faites les diriger par d'autres.
Vous pourriez, Milady, vous require a moins de la
moiti6 du monde que vous avez, et vous vous en
trouveriez mieux sous tous les rapports. Je ne saurai
trop vous prier de soigner votre sant6, puisqu'elle doit
faire a peu pres toute votre consolation."

1838-1839] DJOUN 419

Why would she not profit by this excellent advice ?
All she did was to recall Lunardi from Leghorn,
sending him, through M. Guys, 1200 francs for various
commissions he was to execute for her.

Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon

"February gtA, 1839.

" I have to thank you lor a vast amount of trouble
you have given yourself; all in the end will turn out
well, I hope. I have written a few lines in answer
to the Morning Chronicle, which you will afterwards
see in ' Galignani,' without doubt. . . . What a simple-
ton you are sometimes ! Leave my systems to me,
and adopt those of your own ; but don't blame mine,
as you have done, without knowing the reason of them.

" Miss Pardoe's book I have not yet looked into.
The one you sent me" (Diary of the Times of
George IV.) " is interesting only to those who were
acquainted with the persons named — all mock taste,
mock feeling, etc. ; but that is the fashion. ' I am this
— I am that/ who ever talked such empty stuff for-
merly ? / was never named by a well-bred person.

" There has been a vast deal of rain this year ; but
not very cold — the house nearly as usual. My cough
continues — my spirits the same.

" A hyena came into the garden the other day, and
Ibrahim Beytar killed it with only a bludgeon, and
brought me the skin ; it is the first wild beast of the
kind that has been so daring this winter. The dogs
frightened the animal so much on the outside that it
scaled the wall. . . .

"Shut up as I am, I can have no news; advice you
take ill, and call it scolding. . . . You must promise to
state to me fairly the impression my affairs make on
the English " (the doctor was then at Nice), " and what
sort and what class of English."

420 LADY HESTER'S REPROACHES [CH. ix

Lady Hester to Lord Hardwicke

" DJOUN,
" \\th February, 1839.

" DEAR LORD HARDWICKE, — I requested you in my
last letter to immediately sell my annuity and pension ;
had you reasons for wishing to decline I should
have respected them, but why not tell me so ?
Perhaps again ' branches of my family ' have inter-
fered. If so, the law shall teach them their rights and
mine. 'Give unto Caesar the things which are
Caesar's/ and leave the unpledged Hester to herself.
This is all I want or require. Do not accuse me
hereafter of deceit, because I am silent. Had I been
treated as I ought to have been, I have much to say.

" Adieu, my dear Lord H. If you have acted not
most kindly by me, it is the first time in your life (I
should believe) that any one could reproach you with
want of feeling. Therefore it is to be forgiven for
once, and it would be my fault were I to make an
experiment a second time, or accept of offers of service,
under, perhaps, the control of third persons who are
ashamed to come forward, and being aware that if
they did, they would receive no answer to any proposal
they might make.

" Believe me,

" Most sincerely yours,

" H. L. S."
Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon

" DJOUN,
" March \\th, 1839.

" I believe your eyes and ears will be opened too
late. You will then see, to your cost, that admonitions
(called scoldings) were the highest compliment I could
pay a man in your situation, by endeavouring to raise
his mind to the altitude necessary to exist (one may

1838-1839] DJOUN 421

say) in a wreck of worlds. If you were so uneasy at
Djoun, how will your nerves bear what you will be
doomed to see ? But, when this time comes, no more
advice from me to you or any one ; let all pick their
way, and abide by the consequences. Words are
nothing ; the hearts of men must be cleansed from all
the vain, idle stuff they now cherish as a sort of safe-
guard or escape-boat to evils of all kinds. If the
naked savage, who has the feelings of a man, is not
in high favour with the Almighty, and placed in a
higher situation (if he continues to do his duty) than
the educated my lord, the pedant, the gentleman, as
it is called, without either conscience, talent, or money,
I know nothing, and you may reproach me hereafter
in the harshest possible terms.

" It is a very mean spirit which fears obligation ; we
are under obligations of the most serious nature every
day to the horse, the ass, the cow, etc. All the stuff
persons now call spirit, are the vulgar ideas of the
lowest and least philosophical of human beings.
What should I think of my deserted self, were I to
constantly talk to Logmagi of obligation ? I am proud
to acknowledge all I owe to his zeal and obedience. . . .
There is at present a great kirkuby (uproar), seizing
recruits for the Nizam, and entering by force into all
sorts of houses, to seek for arms. . . . The Prophet is
most comfortable in his new habitation ; I have
planted shrubs for him round the windows, divided
the room in two, and made all new, with an excellent
sofa. . . ."

The next letter, dated May 6th, gives an account
(omitted by the doctor) of a furious quarrel between
Logmagi and her .maid Zezef6on, in which the latter
used her teeth as well as her tongue, and poor Logmagi
got badly bitten.

422 A QUARRELSOME HOUSEHOLD [CH. ix

Lady Hester to Dr. Meryon

" Thank God for my nerves ! Would you sleep
alone in a room with this girl? And, besides, she told
me, the other day, that she had only teeth for those
who displeased her, and, therefore, you see she is not
ashamed of herself; but I think no more of her than
of a little babe, and sleep on quietly. All in the house
have made wry faces after this affair — even Logmagi,
who would not like to be bitten a second time. . . .

" Some one — I suppose you — sent me the Life of
Lord Edward Fitzgerald. It is / who could give a
true and most extraordinary account of all those
transactions. The Duchess (Lord Edward's mother)
was my particular friend, as was also his aunt. I
was intimate with all the family, and knew that noted
Pamela. All the books I see make me sick — only
catchpenny nonsense.

" A thousand thanks for the promise of my grand-
father's letters, but the book will be all spoilt, by being
edited by young men. First, they are totally ignorant
of the politics of my grandfather's age ; secondly, of
the style of langua e used at that period ; and abso-
lutely ignorant of his secret reasons and intentions
and the real or apparent footing he was upon with
many people, friends and foes. I know all that from
my grandmother, who was his secretary, and, Coutts
used to say, the cleverest man of her times in politics,
business, etc. Even the late Lord Chatham, his son,
had but an imperfect idea of all that took place. . . .
Do not keep reproaching yourself about leaving me ;
it did not depend on you to stay." . . .

The next-— probably the last letter Lady Hester
ever wrote — was in answer to one (here given) from
Lord Hardwicke. She had reproached him with

!838-i839] FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES 423

neglecting her affairs and ignoring her wishes, while
he had, in fact, been hard at work to do the best he
could for her in a most difficult business.

Lord Hardwicke to Lady Hester

" WIMPOLE,

"March i8M, 1839.

" MY DEAR LADY HESTER,— I have endeavoured to
put your affairs, or rather to give you the means of
putting your affairs, in a state that may save you from
the pain and persecution to which I with pain believe
you have been subject ; but, after consulting with
Coutts, and reflecting on the peculiarity of your
situation, separated as you are from friends and
country, without having any one on whom you could
rely to arrange a transaction like this one now the
subject of this letter, I do not see my way towards
extricating you from your present difficulties. Were
you in England, you could then manage to make terms
with the creditors, so as to make you comfortable for
life ; and knowing, as I well do, that these debts were
contracted chiefly to assist others, your conscience
need not, I think, feel too acutely if, after your best
exertions, and your surrender of nearly all you have,
your property will not cover the whole of your debts.

" Now, while writing, I am ignorant of the amount
of your debts, but conceive them to amount to £8,000
or £10,000. Were you in England this might be paid,
as the value of your property, (taking your life as aged
63 years, your income of £1,500 per annum would sell
for £11,000, and your pension of £1,200 per annum
would fetch £9,000) together £20,000. But then you
must be seen and known, and in England, to produce
this sum from your income. In the present state of
affairs, yourself in Syria, it will fetch nothing ; they

424 FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES [CH. ix

will not buy it. So here your good intention is stopped
at once.

" While writing this, I received your letter of the
I4th of February, in which you seem to think I had
been neglectful of your interests, but I have done all
1 can, and 1 do not see the way out of the difficulty.
It is my opinion that nothing can be done unless you
come home. Your pension will, I understand, be paid
up. You must also remember that, it I had the
power to sell your pension and annuity, I could
not commence the liquidation of the debts, for I do
not know either the amount or the names of your
creditors.

" I assure you lam most anxious to be of service to
you, but being without any means whatever, I fear
you may still think me neglectful, as no progress can
be made in this country.

" It would be folly to sell your annuity and pension
for less than it is worth, and, indeed, as I have before
stated, without seeing you no one will give a year's
purchase for either.

" I am very glad to see by your letter that you are
in good health. I hope you will not think I am
deficient in feeling towards you, or that I am wanting
in desire to serve you, because the results of my
attempts have failed — failed owing to circumstances
over which I have no control, viz., your absence from
England in a country so little known to the money-
dealing men of this country.

" This is quite a business letter, and as it is so, I
will not introduce any other matter into it, but con-
clude by expressing to you how ready I am to be of
service to you, if you will point out the way, and
assure you that I see no way out of your difficulties,
unless you can raise money on your annuity and

1838-1839] LADY HESTER'S LAST LETTER 425

pension, and that cannot be done to any amount, with-
out your presence in England.
" Believe me always,

" Yours most truly and affectionately,

" HARDWICKE."

Lady Hester to Lord Hardwicke

" DJOUN,

"6th of June, 1839.

" MY DEAR LORD HARDWICKE, — May it please the all-
powerful Commander of events to give me a fair hour
in which I may be able to give evidence to the world
of my gratitude for your (having?) thus kindly in-
terested yourself (in ?) my affairs, where others have
forsaken (me ?). What you say about my coming to
England I understand, and appears very reasonable,
but I cannot, will never, go there but in chains, there-
fore that subject must never more be mentioned.
I have reflected, and feel that God will not forsake
(me), and if no one will buy my pension, &c., I must
advertize for a Cumberlands Jew to assist me. Young
dancing Hamersley formerly was very generous in
his transactions, but all men have become beasts — vile,
unfeeling, uninteresting beasts. After the 5th of July,
I shall draw for the arrears of my pension, because
I heard of it by other means than those only of
Colonel Campbell, with whom I never will have any
communication, a blackguard toady. The first debt
I shall pay is a Turk, who, hearing some unpleasant
conversation respecting one of my bills (or bonds),
paid it directly. This I did not know for a month
after. The man is not rich, but felt for me, and, like
you, kind-hearted to all. For God's sake, do not let
my impudent relations interfere in my concerns, or
look over my accounts at Coutts'. Did ever anyone
hear of conduct like what theirs has been ? Do not

426 DEATH [CH. ix

be unhappy about my future fate. I have done what
I believe my duty, the duty of every one of every
religion ; I have no reproaches to make myself, but
that I went rather too far ; but such is my nature, and
a happy nature too, who can make up its mind to
everything but insult. I have been treated like a vile
criminal, but God is great ! ! ! When I have quite
made up my mind about what I shall do, I shall let
you know, but avoid bothering you and boring you.
My annuity will not do without the pension, and per-
haps the two even not enough ; but that is no one's
business but mine.

" Dear Lord H.,

" Yours ever sincerely and affectionately,

11 H. L. S."

She died just a fortnight after this was written.
She had been ill for months, but became suddenly
worse three days before the end. From first to last
she was without medical attendance. How was she
cared for? Who nursed her? Was it the savage
girl who " had teeth for those who displeased her,"
or the thief Fatoom ? There was no one left to look
after her ; Lunardi arrived only a few days after he
death. One's heart aches to think of her on her death
bed, lying helpless and powerless, at the mercy of
her servants, with no kindred hand to clasp in hers,
no familiar sound of an English voice in her ear. She
died as she had lived — alone.

The dragoman of the Austrian Consul-General com
municated the news to Colonel Campbell :

" Aujourd'hui, 23 Juin, a 2 heures apres midi, Lady
Hester Stanhope, miladi, a expire apres une longue
maladie, qui ne s'6tait agrav6e que depuis peu de
jours."

Mr. Moore, our Consul at Beyrout, at once started
for Djoun to make the necessary arrangements for her
funeral, and writes to my father :

>»

e

?
k

,-

1838-1839] LADY HESTER'S FUNERAL 427

Mr. Moore to Lord Stanhope

" BEYROUT,

" June 26th, 1839.

" No European medical attendant was present at the
period of Lady Hester's decease, nor had one, I under-
stand, for some time previous been called in. An
express on the part of her Ladyship was despatched
to her agent at Beyrout on Friday, the 2ist, requiring
medical aid, but she had expired before the arrival of
the messenger in town.

" Desirous of obtaining a statement as to the cause
of Lady Hester's death, I applied for that purpose to
the ablest medical practitioner in this neighbourhood,
Dr. d'Erode, with a request to accompany me to
Djoun, but he was unable to comply therewith on
account of the number of patients under his charge.
Another medical man was also applied to for the same
object, but was unfortunately absent.

" The rapidity with which decomposition advances
in this climate admitted of no delay in the arrange-
ments for interment, and a few hours after I had been
apprised of Lady Hester's decease, I left this place for
Djoun, accompanied by the Rev. Mr. Thomson, an
American missionary, who, at my request, kindly
consented to perform the funeral service on this
occasion.

11 We arrived at Djoun about ten o'clock the same
evening, and after identifying the body, and seeing it
placed in a coffin, I decided on the interment taking
place without delay.

" Her Ladyship having left verbal directions as to
the disposal of her body, viz. : that it should be
deposited in a vault constructed in her own garden,
the necessary arrangements being completed, and the
funeral service of the Church of England performed

428 LADY HESTER'S FUNERAL [CH. ix

by Mr. Thomson, the corpse was borne and followed
to the tomb by her Ladyship's own domestics, accom-
panied by Mr. Thomson and myself.

" The next morning I directed a diligent search for
a will, but without success. I then caused all Lady
Hester's letters and papers to be placed in boxes,
which were officially sealed.

11 1 further left Signer Abella, the British consular
agent at Sidon, in charge of the house and effects,
with instructions to take exact inventories of all the
household effects, wearing apparel, &c., the whole of
which will remain under seal, until your Lordship
may be pleased to give instructions relative to their
disposal.

" The servants, male and female, in Lady Hester's
service were twenty-eight in number, and all
Mahometans. According to information obtained
from them, her Ladyship had been in an infirm state
of health for the last three months, during which time
she had not left the house to take her customary
exercise in the garden. The day before her decease,
she foresaw the approach of death, and said she should
not outlive the next day. The impression was too
well founded, as, about four o'clock of the day pre-
dicted, she breathed her last, preserving, till within
a few minutes of her decease, all her faculties.

" In the absence of a European medical practitioner,
I required the opinion of a native doctor as to the
immediate cause of death. He attributed it to natural
and general decay — a conclusion there can be no
difficulty in adopting, considering the advanced age
of the deceased, and the attenuated appearance of the
corpse. The features showed no indications of acute
suffering, and were composed and placid.

41 The debts of Lady Hester amount, 1 understand,

f

1838-1839] LADY HESTER'S EFFECTS 429

to about ;£7,ooo, as far as my present information
extends, consisting chiefly of promissory notes for
money borrowed. The assets, consisting principally
of household furniture (judging on a cursory estimate
of their apparent value), may amount to £400 ; this
valuation may, however, be erroneous, either way,
as it is based on a hasty examination. Jewels I under-
stand her Ladyship did not possess, nor any plate
beyond some trifling articles, spoons and forks, which
will find their place in the general inventory. . . . The
house inhabited by Lady Hester was not her own.
There are horses, as well as other domestic animals,
all of which will be specified in the inventories. I
have directed the female servants to be discharged, and
such male servants to be retained as may be necessary
for the preservation of the effects, and to protect an
isolated house from marauders.

" Early instructions in regard to the horses and the
disposal of the household effects are desirable, as
expenses are necessarily incurred for servants' wages
who are left in charge, and for the maintenance of the
horses, and it does not appear that any funds exist to
meet these expenses."

Here is the account given by the American mis-
sionary :

" The English Consul at Beyrout requested me to
perform the religious services at the funeral of Lady
Hester. It was an intensely hot Sabbath, in June,
1839. We started on our melancholy errand at one
o'clock, and reached this place about midnight. After
a brief examination, the Consul decided that the
funeral must take place immediately. The vault in
the garden was hastily opened, and the bones of
General Loustaneau or his son, I forget which — a

43o A CURIOUS COINCIDENCE [CH. ix

Frenchman who died here, and was buried in this
vault by her Ladyship — were taken out, and placed at
the head.

" The body, in a plain deal box, was carried by her
servants to the grave, followed by a mixed company,
with torches and lanterns, to enable them to thread
their way through the winding alleys of the garden. I
took a wrong path, and wandered for some time in the
mazes of these labyrinths. When, at length, I entered
the arbour, the first thing I saw were the bones of the
General, in a ghastly heap, with the head on top,
having a lighted taper stuck in either eye-socket — a
hideous, grinning spectacle. It was difficult to
proceed with the service, under circumstances so
novel and bewildering. The Consul subsequently
remarked that there were some curious coincidences
between this and the burial of Sir John Moore, her
Ladyship's early love. In silence, on the lone moun-
tain, at midnight, ' our lanterns dimly burning,' with
the flag of her country over her, she ' lay like a
warrior taking his rest,' and we ' left her alone in her
glory.' There was but one of her own nation present,
and his name was Moore.

11 The people of Djoun, that village across the wady>
made large profits from the liberality and extrava-
gances of Lady Hester, and they are full of wonderful
stories about her. Several of our friends at Sidon
were in her service for years, and from them, and
from others still more closely connected, I have had
abundant opportunity to learn the character of this
strange being. On most subjects she was not merely
sane, but sensible, well-informed, and extremely
shrewd. She possessed extraordinary powers of con-
versation, and was perfectly fascinating to all with
whom she chose to make herself agreeable. She was,

1838-1839] GREEDY RETAINERS 43'

however, whimsical, imperious, tyrannical, and at
times revengeful to a high degree. Bold as a lion, she
wore the dress of an Emir, weapons, pipe, and all ; nor
did she fail to rule her Albanian guards and her servants
with absolute authority. She kept spies in the prin-
cipal cities, and at the residences of Pashas and Emirs,
and knew everything that was going on in the country.
Her garden, of several acres, was walled round like a
fort, and crowning the top of this conical hill, with
deep wadys on all sides, the appearance from a distance
was quite imposing. But the site was badly chosen.
The hill has no relative elevation above others ; the
prospect is not inviting, the water is distant, far below,
and had to be carried up on mules. She, however,
had the English taste for beautiful grounds, and
spared neither time, labour, nor expense to convert
this barren hill into a wilderness of shady avenues, and
a paradise of sweet flowers, and she succeeded. I have
rarely seen a more beautiful place.

" The morning after the funeral, the Consul and I
went round the premises, and examined thirty-five
rooms, which had been sealed up by the Vice-Consul
of Sidon, to prevent robbery. They were full of trash.
One had forty or fifty oil jars of French manufacture —
old, empty, and dusty. Another was crammed with
Arab saddles, moth-eaten, tattered and torn. They
had belonged to her mounted guard. Superannuated
pipe-stems, without bowls, filled one room. Two more
were devoted to medicines, and another to books and
papers, mostly in boxes and ancient chests. Nothing
of much value was found anywhere, and the seals were
replaced, to await legal action. The crowd of servants
and greedy retainers had appropriated to themselves
her most valuable effects. One of the wealthy citizens
of Sidon is said to have obtained his money in that

432 REV. DR. THOMSON [CH. ix

way. She told Mrs. Thomson that once, when she
was supposed to be dying of plague, she could hear
her servants breaking open her chests, and ripping off
the embossed covers of her cushions. "Oh! didn't I
vow," said she, "that if I recovered, I would make a
scattering of them ! " and she performed her vow to
the letter. But each succeeding set, like the flies in
the fable of the fox, were as greedy as their pre-
decessors ; and, as she finally died of a lingering
disease, they had time enough to work their will, and
nothing valuable escaped their rapacity. What a
death ! Without a European attendant — without a
friend, male or female — alone, on the top of this bleak
mountain, her lamp of life grew dimmer and more dim,
until it went quite out in hopeless, rayless night. Such
was the end of the once gay and brilliant niece of Pitt,
presiding in the saloons of the master spirit of Europe,
and familiar with the intrigues of kings and cabinets.
With Mr. Abbott and his lady, she would sit out the
longest night, talking over those stirring times of the
last century, and the beginning of the present, with
exhaustless spirit and keen delight. But nothing could
tempt her back to England. At length her income
was greatly curtailed to pay her numerous debts. She
was furious, but unsubdued. In her mountain nest,
and all alone, she dragged out the remnant of her
days in haughty pride and stubborn independence.

" She could be extremely sarcastic, and her satire
was often terrible. Many of her letters, and the
margin of books which I purchased at the auction, are
' illuminated ' with her caustic criticisms. There was
no end to her eccentricities. In some things she was
a devout believer — an unbeliever in many. She read
the stars, and dealt in nativities, and a sort of second
sight, by which she pretended to foretell coming

1838-1839] SALE OF LADY HESTER'S EFFECTS 433

events. She practised alchemy, and, in pursuit of this
vain science, was often closeted with strange com-
panions. She had a mare, whose backbone sank
suddenly down at the shoulders, and rose abruptly
near the hips. This deformity her vivid imagination
converted into a miraculous saddle, on which she was
to ride into Jerusalem as queen, by the side of some
sort of Messiah, who was to introduce a fancied
millennium. Another mare had a part to play in this
august pageant, and both were tended with extra-
ordinary care. A lamp was kept burning in their
very comfortable apartments, and they were served
with sherbet and other luxuries. Nothing about the
premises so excited my compassion as these poor pam-
pered brutes, upon which Lady Hester had lavished
her choicest affections for the last fourteen years.
They were soon after sold at auction, when hard work
and low living quickly terminated their miserable
existence. Lady Hester was a doctor, and most
positive in her prescriptions to herself, her servants,
her horses, and even to her chickens, and often did
serious mischief to all her patients. She had many
whimsical tests of character both for man and beast,
and, of course, was often deceived by both, to her cost.
But we must end these random sketches. To draw a
full-length portrait is aside from our purpose and
beyond our power. She was wholly and magnificently
unique." — The Land and the Book, by W. M. Thomson,
D.D.

The household effects at Djoun were sold to pay the
servants' wages, &c. Lady Hester's will, a very old
one, made in September, 1807, was found deposited
with Messrs. Coutts, together with three boxes con-
taining letters and papers, a silver-gilt coffee-pot and
stand, a gold powder horn, and some trinkets of
trifling value. She bequeathed all her maternal
29

434 LADY HESTER'S WILL [CH. ix

fortune (long since spent) to her brothers Charles
and James, and then to General Anderson. There
was a codicil, added just before she left England, as
follows :

" I' leave the sum of £500 to my maid, Elizabeth
Williams, and also my trinkets, with these excep-
tions :

" Pearl locket, with Mr. Pitt's hair, to the Duchess
of Richmond.

" Present of the Cardinal Duke of York, to the Duke
of Richmond.

" Tippoo Saib's powder horn to Lord Temple ; it
was given to me by Mr. Pitt.

" The late Lord Chatham's seal to General Miranda.

" My watch to Mr. Howard ; and fifty guineas, for a
gold snuff-box, to Mr. Murray."

"January ist, 1810; very unwell ; in bed all day."

The balance due to her on Messrs. Coutts' account
was nearly £2,000 (£1,946 55. 30?.).

All the persons mentioned in the will were dead,
with the sole exception of General Anderson, who,
with Mr. Murray, was named as executor, and the
fortune bequeathed to him had been spent. The
watch mentioned had probably been lost in the ship-
wreck, as she had none in her possession at Djoun.
None of its provisions could in consequence be carried
out, and it was administered by the creditors. But
they could not be brought to agree among themselves;
they wrangled, and squabbled, and delayed ; thus the
settlement of Lady Hester's affairs proved a very
lengthy and tedious business. Some of the creditors
were killed in the Druse insurrection of 1841 before it
was completed ; but in the end 1 believe all the bond
fide debts were paid. My father bought the papers,
powder horn, trinkets, &c. The silver-gilt inkstand
went to the only surviving legatee, General Anderson,
once one of her best and dearest friends, but whom
she had, long ago, discarded with the rest of her
English correspondents. " For many years," he says

1838-1839] VALE 435

in a letter to my father, " all correspondence between
me and Lady Hester had ceased."
Another old friend writes to my father :

Sir F. Burdett to Lord Stanhope

"July 30//&, 1839.

" MY DEAR LORD STANHOPE, — Your letter yesterday
gave me most unfeigned sorrow, acquainting me with
the death of Lady Hester.

"Although nothing could be more apparently im-
possible than that I should have ever again seen her,
still there is a natural and strange feeling about the
loss, for so it is, of one to whom you have been long
and greatly attached. Some of my earliest, and most
agreeable recollections of days past at Chevening,
have a melancholy shadow cast behind upon them
by the death of so highly gifted, and honourable
minded, and extraordinary a person as was Lady
Hester Stanhope.

" It fills my heart with a sadness I could not have
anticipated, and can scarcely account for — I mean
reasonably — so, however, it is, and so I remain,
" Believe me, my dear Lord Stanhope,
"Yours very sincerely,

"F. BURDETT."

CHAPTER X

CONCLUSION

THE doctor meanwhile was busied with his book,
and in December my father was greatly disturbed
on being apprised of this intended publication. He
wrote to beg Dr. Meryon to reconsider his decision.

Lord Stanhope to Dr. Meryon

" I am convinced, from all I know of your character,
that you would deeply regret if you were to be the
instrument of wounding the feelings of Lady Hester's
relations and friends by a disclosure of family anec-
dotes and domestic dissensions which ought to remain
unknown to the world ; and I beg you to reflect
whether it would be worthy of your professional
eminence and reputation to communicate publicly
what was learned only in the confidential intercourse
of private life."

The doctor's reply was in forma pauperis. He stated
that he was in his fifty-sixth year, with a wife and
family whom he was unable to support as his position
in life required. The salary given him by Lady Hester
was so small that he had never been able to put by
a single farthing, and he had always been given to
understand that he should be provided for, as she
often expressed a wish to " make the decline of his
life easy." He had spent the best years of his life
in her service ; he had crossed the Mediterranean four
times on her account, " guided by his sense of devotion
and attachment to her " ; he had sacrificed all personal
considerations when she was in question. She had

436

1839] DR. MERYON AS BIOGRAPHER 437

herself acknowledged her obligations to him in the
warmest possible manner in writing to Mr. Webb
(see p. 250). As regarded the impropriety of pub-
lishing private conversations, he had no intention of
being guilty of such a dereliction of his professional
duties. It was rather to comply with Lady Hester's
wishes that he had written his book.

Dr. Meryon to Lord Stanhope

" It was her legacy to me, for she had nothing else
to leave me, and I confess I have indulged the hope
that the profits will, in a pecuniary sense, in part
realize her good intentions towards me. . . . Having
on one occasion said that, had she chosen to write
her own life, she might have paid her debts by it,
she laughingly observed, that she could never have
patience to write a book, nor even to dictate one,
but could tell me a few stories now and then to
help me to write one with."1

He had, he thought, brought together much that
" would do honour to her name, and furnish materials
for reflection to the philosopher and moralist."

But, as he had no wish to give pain to her family,
he had ordered the publication to be suspended.

My father's answer was not, I fear, what he expected.

Lord Stanhope to Dr. Meryon

" Though I see no reason to doubt that my sister
Hester was sincerely desirous of befriending any
person to whom she owed obligations, she had no

1 Here I must be permitted to join issue with him. Lady Hester
may not have objected to his writing down any anecdotes she chose
to tell him, but he was one of the last persons she would have selected
as her biographer. He himself tells us that once, when giving him
some messages for Messrs. Knox & Forster, she said to him : "You
may talk to them a little about stars, but I daresay you will commit
some horrible blunder, as you always do : and that is what makes
me so afraid of your having to say anything concerning me." Little
indeed did she imagine how he was then employed ! It is evident
she did not think very highly of his understanding, and she declared
that, owing to his inaccuracy, he made misghief every time he opened
his mouth,

438 DR. MERYON'S BOOK [CH. x

means of doing so, as must have been obvious to
those who were in any degree acquainted with her
situation. . . . With respect to your work, I thought
it my duty to protest against its publication, and
still continue to do so, and I am informed that some
persons to whom it has been communicated con-
sidered it objectionable in several respects. You will
judge what is due to your own reputation, and to
that of my sister, and without interfering on my side
in what you may suppose to be a profitable under-
taking, I reserve to myself the right, if the character
and conduct of any person should be assailed in this
work, of taking such measures as may appear to me
necessary for their vindication."

This correspondence had the good effect of delaying
the publication of the Memoirs for some time ; and it
was Lady Hester's correspondence with General Oakes
that first saw the light.1 It was commenced in the
January number of the New Monthly Magazine of
1843; and on March 3rd Dr. Meryon writes that "he
takes the liberty of mentioning that he has nothing
whatever to do with it." He was then applying for
the Consulship at Cyprus, and begged my father to
ask my brother (who was at that time at the Foreign
Office) to speak in his favour. This appointment he
did not, however, succeed in obtaining; and in 1845
he at last made up his mind to bring out his book,
carefully substituting initials for almost all the names
mentioned in it. He says in his preface :

" I beg leave, in the most explicit terms, to apprize
the reader that I have published nothing that Lady
Hester would not have desired to be now made
known. . . . My object being to portray a character
which is not duly appreciated by people in general,
I could devise no better means than that of giving

1 These letters — twenty-five in number — are now in the Forster
Bequest to the South Kensington Museum,

1 845] DR. MERYON'S EXCULPATION 439

a diary of her conversations, wherein her obser-
vations of men and things fall naturally from her
own mouth."

He gives a pitiable account of the state in which
he left her.

" Will it be believed that, when in August 1838,
I took leave of her, the beam of the ceiling of the
saloon in which she ordinarily sat was propped up
by two unsightly spars of wood, for fear the ceiling
should fall on her head ; and that these deal pillars,
very nearly in the rough state in which they had
been brought from the North in some Swedish vessel,
stood in the centre of the room ? Her bedroom was
still worse ; for there the prop was a rough unplaned
trunk of a poplar-tree, cut at the foot of the hill on
which her own house stood. . . ."

He was under no illusion— how, indeed, is it pos-
sible he should have been ? — as to the position she
would have to face when he went away.

"There is no doubt that, by prolonging my stay on
Mount Lebanon, I might have been of considerable
service to her Ladyship. She was about to shut
herself up alone, without money, without books,
without a soul she could confide in ; without a single
European, male or female, about her; with winter
coming on, beneath roofs certainly no longer water-
proof, and that might fall in ; with war at her doors,
and without any means of defence except in her own
undaunted courage ; with no one but herself to carry
on her correspondence ; so that everything conspired
to make it an imperative duty to remain with her,
yet she would not allow me to do so, and insisted
on my departure on an appointed day, declaring it

440 CRITICISM OF DR. MERYON [CH. x

to be her fixed intention to remain immured, as in
a tomb, until reparation had been made her for the
supposed insult she had received from the British
Government."

Sad as is this catalogue of poor Lady Hester's
miseries and trials, Dr. Meryon yet omits the greatest
of them all— the broken' health that doubled the weight
of every burden she had to bear. She was so ill that
he thought it very doubtful (see p. 406) whether she
would live through the winter; and after his departure
the barber at Sayda would be the only doctor at hand.
When he left Djoun, he went no further than Cyprus,
where he spent some little time, and he might surely
have remained within reach at Beyrout.

His book was reviewed in the Quarterly of September,
1845, and 1 have here given some extracts from the
article, as I think it contains a very just estimate of
Lady Hester's character :

" The publication of private correspondence, and of
other matters of a private nature touching individuals
deceased, has more than once drawn from us remarks,
which we deemed it the bounden duty of those who
exercise the functions of literary police to make. . . .
We are once more brought to dwell on this subject
by the appearance of a new feature which it presents,
in the disclosure, for the first time, by a medical
gentleman, of the matters communicated to him during
his professional attendance — his attendance, too, upon
a lady— a. lady of high rank, and with many high
qualities, but unhappy, solitary, ill at ease in body
and in mind, an exile among the wilds of Lebanon,
having no one near her to whom she could speak of
bygone days and buried friends or foes, nobody but
this physician. ... It is one of the many reasons
against publishing such journals that great errors
can hardly be avoided even by all the care which
may be used to insure correctness. . . . The warning

1845] CRITICISM OF DR. MERYON 441

thence arising to the reader that he should be on his
guard is the more necessary for the sake of common
charity, and indeed common justice, because the
nature of such a book unavoidably is such as to
give it extraordinary attractions. These volumes
are such as no one who takes them up can easily
lay down. The character of the principal personage
is one of no ordinary interest.

" The grand-daughter of Lord Chatham, Lady Hester
had all his spirit and his fire, much of his penetrating
quickness, some of his fancy, not a few of his eccen-
tricities. She was not well informed ; for though she
had read a good deal, her reading had been very
desultory, and though she had lived with some of
the ablest men of her day, she had mingled in their
conversation with an overweening confidence in her
own powers, little lively to make her a docile auditor,
or a careful storer-up of what she might hear. For
many of the latter years of her singular life, she neither
read nor conversed with those who had; her inter-
course being only with her servants, a few of the
natives, some occasional visitors, for a few excited
moments each, and this journalising doctor, whose
share in the performance indicates very scanty litera-
ture, or information of any kind. But in the great
faculty of seeing clearly into character, she excelled
to the last, and was seldom mistaken, unless when
her temper or her prejudice dug pitfalls for her
judgment. Her courage was undaunted at all .times,
her patience and fortitude far greater than such a
temperament could have easily made credible; her
pride towering, like that of all her house; her honour,
like theirs, pure irom every stain ; her generosity so
boundless as to spurn all the limits which her means
prescribed. In her ideas, and so in her projects, there

442 "THE QUARTERLY REVIEW" [CH. x

was ever somewhat of the romantic — much of fancy,
little of reason and reflection ; yet with all this which
points to the ideal and impracticable, she acquired an
influence, an ascendancy over those with whom she
came in contact, whether public or private parties,
which seems all but fabulous, and she was truly for
some years regarded as a kind of power in the Levant,
though living with a small retinue, in a lone house,
on a moderate income. This she owed to her firm
and commanding will. Difficulties she contemned,
and impossibility was not a word of her vocabulary,
any more than of her grandfather's. That her
illustrious uncle derived his cool and practical judg-
ment from the cross of the Grenville blood can well
be conceived, but then we must, in contemplating the
niece, have recourse to the supposition either that
Chatham's fervent heat had, with his gout, passed
over one generation, or that the Stanhope admixture
had neutralized the Grenville influence, for assuredly
no two characters ever resembled each other less, in
all but generous neglect of self, and high principles
of honour, than did those of Mr. Pitt and Lady Hester.
Nor was there less of likeness in the outward form
than in the interior of these remarkable relatives.
Lady Hester was, though tall, of a fine and feminine
form ; and as her figure was graceful, her features
were both beautiful and expressive. She might well,
in her early days, fix the deepest affections of as
noble-hearted a soldier as ever died on the bed of
honour. She might well, ere that cruel termination
of her hopes gave the ultimate dark shade to her
temperament, have been the chosen solace of the
private hours of Mr. Pitt.

" She was the daughter of his favourite sister, and
lived with him for the last years of his eventful life,

1845] "THE QUARTERLY REVIEW" 443

With her great talents, her lively and various con-
versation, her admirable manners, her frankness— so
likely to relieve one whose shyness was habitual and
painful — she became the favourite associate of his
leisure, and before her he freely unbent himself.

" Her imagination so mastered her reason that,
notwithstanding her knowledge of mankind, her emi-
nently suspicious nature, and her boasted knowledge
of seeing through characters, she was the easy dupe
of impostors. Thus projectors were ever obtaining
money from her. Some man, designated as X. in
these volumes, but whose real name should be made
known, pretended to bear a message from the Dukes
of Sussex and Bedford to her, with offers of pecuniary
assistance to liquidate her debts, and obtained entire
possession of her confidence, which, of course, he
must have turned to his profit, and her loss. The
rumour of a Colonel Needham having left his pro-
perty in Ireland to Mr. Pitt, who pre-deceased him
by a few days, made her never doubt that his
heir-at-law, Lord Kilmorey, must make over his
estates to her, at least after his own decease, and
she was, for years, in expectation of a favourable
answer on this head from Sir Francis Burdett, to
whom she had written as her negotiator, but who,
no doubt, considered the whole affair as some Irish
joke, or Syrian dream.

"After all, however, her embarrassments appear
clearly to have resulted from her boundless charities,
and her noble munificence to those she protected.
Her country and her countrymen reaped largely the
benefits of all her expenditure, into which nothing
mean, or paltry, or selfish, or calculating, entered;
and we must say that we feel truly disgusted at the

444 MR. ELIOT WARBURTON [CH. x

return she received from the British Ministry for all
her generosity — a return which appears, if not illegal,
yet to approach the very limits of the law. Some
moneylender complained that she was in debt to him,
wherupon Lord Palmerston thought proper to issue
his orders to the consuls in the Levant, that they
should refuse any certificate of her being alive, which
ceremony was necessary in order to give her the
right to draw her pension quarterly ! . . . We verily
believe this instance of official oppression is without
an example, and we are curious to hear by what law
it was justified."

Ten years after her death, Lady Hester's deserted
house at Djoun was visited and described by Eliot
Warburton :

" It was late when we came in sight of two conical
hills, on one of which stands the village of Djouni,
on the other, a circular wall, over which dark trees
were waving, and this was the place in which Lady
Hester Stanhope had finished her strange and eventful
career. It had formerly been a convent, but the Pacha
of Sidon had given it to the ' prophet-lady,' who con-
verted its naked walls into a palace, and its wilderness
into gardens.

" The sun was setting as we entered the enclosure,
and we were soon scattered about the outer court,
picketing our horses, rubbing down their foaming
flanks, and washing out their wounds. The buildings
that constituted the palace were of a very scattered
and complicated description, covering a wide space,
but only one story in height; courts and gardens,
stables and sleeping-rooms, halls of audience and
ladies' bowers, were strangely intermingled. Heavy
weeds were growing everywhere among the open

1849] DJOUN IN 1849 445

portals, and we forced our way with difficulty through
a tangle of roses and jasmine to the inner court.
Here choice flowers once bloomed, and fountains
played in marble basins, but now was presented a
scene of the most melancholy desolation. As the
watchfire blazed up, its gleam fell upon masses of
honeysuckle and woodbine ; on white, mouldering
walls beneath, and dark, waving trees above, while
the group of mountaineers who gathered round its
light, with their long beards and vivid dresses, com-
pleted the strange picture.

" The clang of sword and spear resounded through
the long galleries, horses neighed among bowers and
boudoirs, strange figures hurried to and fro among
the colonnades, shouting in Arabic, English, and
Italian, the fire crackled, the startled bats flapped
their heavy wings, and the growl of distant thunder
filled up the pauses in the rough symphony.

" Our dinner was spread on the floor in Lady
Hester's favourite apartment ; her deathbed was our
sideboard, her furniture our fuel, her name our con-
versation. Almost before the meal was ended, two of
our party had dropped asleep over their trenchers
from fatigue ; the Druses had retired from the haunted
precincts to their village ; and W., L., and I went out
into the garden, to smoke our pipes by Lady Hester's
lonely tomb. About midnight we fell asleep upon the
ground, wrapped in our capotes, and dreamed of
ladies, and tombs, and prophets, till the neighing of
our horses announced the dawn.

" After a hurried breakfast on fragments of the last
night's repast, we strolled over the extensive grounds.
Here many a broken arbour or trellis, bending under
masses of jasmine and honeysuckle, show the care
and taste that were once lavished on this wild but

446 DJOUN IN 1849 [CH. x

beautiful hermitage. A garden-house, surrounded by
an enclosure of roses run wild, lies in the midst of a
grove of myrtle and bay trees. This was Lady
Hester's favourite resort during her lifetime, and now,
within its silent enclosure,

'After life's fitful fever, she sleeps well.'

" The hand of ruin has dealt very sparingly with all
these interesting relics ; the Pacha's power by day,
and the fear of spirits by night, keep off marauders,
and though we made free with broken benches and
fallen doorposts for fuel, we reverently abstained from
displacing anything in the establishment, except a few
roses, which there was no living thing but bees and
nightingales to regret. It was one of the most striking
and interesting spots I ever witnessed ; its silence and
beauty, its richness and desolation, lent to it a touching
and mysterious character, that suited well the memory
of that strange hermit lady, who has made it a place of
pilgrimage, even in Palestine.

" The Pacha of Sidon presented Lady Hester with
the deserted convent of Mar Elias on her arrival in his
country, and this she soon converted into a fortress,
garrisoned by a band of Albanians ; her only
attendants besides were her doctor, her secretary, and
some female slaves. Public rumour soon busied itself
with such a personage, and exaggerated her influence
and power. It is even said that she was crowned
Queen of the East at Palmyra by 50,000 Arabs. She
certainly exercised almost despotic power in her
neighbourhood on the Mountain ; and, what was,
perhaps, the most remarkable proof of her talents, she
prevailed on some Jews to advance large sums of
money to her on her note of hand. She lived for
many years, beset with difficulties and anxieties, but

1849] MR- ELIOT WARBURTON 447

to the last she held on gallantly ; even when confined
to her bed and dying, she sought for no companionship
or comfort but such as she could find in her own
powerful, though unmanageable mind.

" Mr. Moore, our Consul at Beyrout, hearing she was
ill, rode over the mountains to visit her, accom-
panied by Mr. Thomson, the American missionary.
It was evening when they arrived, and a pro-
found silence was over all the palace; no one met
them; they lighted their own lamps in the outer
court, and passed unquestioned through court and
gallery, until they came to where she lay. A corpse
was the only inhabitant of the palace, and the isolation
from her kind, which she had sought so long, was
indeed complete. That morning, thirty-seven servants
had watched every motion of her eye ; its spell once
darkened by death, every one fled with such plunder
as they could secure. A little girl, adopted by her and
maintained for years, took her watch, and some papers
on which she had set peculiar value. Neither the
child nor the property were ever seen again. Not a
single thing was left in the room where she lay dead,
except the ornaments upon her person ; no one had
ventured to touch these ; even in death, she seemed
able to protect herself. At midnight, her countryman
and the missionary carried her, out by torchlight, to a
spot in the garden that had been formerly her favourite
resort, and here they buried the self-exiled Lady." —
The Crescent and the Cross.

This account of Lady Hester's death-bed is, as we
have seen, purely imaginary, for the Consul found all
the thirty-four servants in the house when he arrived.
True, they had plundered her ; the store-rooms were
empty, and except the forks and spoons, all they could
lay hands on was gone ; but she possessed no watch

448 DJOUN IN 1857 [CH. x

for them to take. The description would, however,
exactly apply to her severe illness in 1828, when a
compassionate peasant, coming in to look after her,
found her utterly deserted, lying starving, and almost
inanimate, in her bed (see p. 258).

The next recorded visitor to Djoun was Mr. Thom-
son, the American missionary, who, returning there in
1857, after eighteen years' absence, found the place had
been completely and purposely destroyed.

" A melancholy change has indeed come over the
scene since first I visited it. The garden, with its
trellised arbours, and shaded alleys, and countless
flowers, is utterly destroyed ; and not one room of all
her large establishment remains entire. This, on the
south-west corner, was the apartment in which Lady
Hester wore out the three last dreary months of life ;
and this, on the east of it, was the open lewan, where
we found the body, wrapped in waxed cloths dipped
in turpentine and spirits. The whole of these premises
were alive with her servants, and others assembled on
this mournful occasion. Now, not a dog, cat, or even
lizard appears to relieve the utter solitude. The
tomb, also, is sadly changed. It was then embowered
in dense shrubbery, and covered with an arbour of
running roses, not a vestige of which now remains,
and the stones of the vault itself are broken and dis-
placed. There is no inscription — not a word in any
language, and unless more carefully protected than
hitherto, the last resting-place of her Ladyship will
soon be entirely lost. The history of this place is
peculiar. It belonged to a wealthy Christian of
Damascus, who built the original house, to which
Lady Hester added some twenty-five or thirty rooms.
At his death, soon after hers, the property was left to
an only son, who quickly spent it all by his extra-
vagance. He then turned Moslem and not long ago

i88i] DJOUN IN 1881 449

hung himself in a neighbouring house. His Moslem
wife — a low, vulgar creature — fearing that the
Christians would one day deprive her of the place,
tore down the buildings, and sold the materials to the
people of Djoun. Thus the destruction has been
intentional, rapid, and complete." — The Land and the
Book, by W. M. Thomson, D.D.

At last — but not till forty-two years after Lady
Hester's death — one of her own kith and kin, her great-
nephew, Philip Stanhope,1 came to see the place where
she had lived and died, and found a grave. He was
accompanied by his wife, and in 1895 they both
returned again with me. He kept no journal at the
time, and the following account of his visit was
written at my request, sixteen years after it had taken
place.

" Our first visit to Djoun was made in March, 1881.
Starting from Beyrout on horseback, and with tents,
we took the road along the sea-shore to Saida, where
we camped for the night. There is, I believe, another
and a shorter road from Beyrout to Saida across the
mountains, but you, who know how rough and
difficult are the mountain paths in the Lebanon, will
understand that the shore route was the preferable
one. At Saida we were assisted by the advice of the
Consul, then, as now, if I remember right, a member of
the Abela family, who date back, I think, to Lady
Hester's time.

"The road to Djoun was much worse in 1881 than
when we visited it together, and the village, in which
one now sees many new houses, was in a dilapidated
and forlorn condition. We were shown several
articles of furniture which were said to have belonged
to Lady Hester, but with the exception of a silver tea
service, with her initials, which we purchased, there

1 Now Lord Weardale.
30

45o DJOUN IN 1881 [CH. x

was really nothing of interest to be found. There
were also old people who remembered her, but I do
not think we saw the servant whom we met on the
occasion of our later visit.

" The house was entirely unoccupied, but the
building was, with the exception of the roof, intact,
and it was possible to trace the disposition of the
rooms and the peculiar arrangement of ante-chambers
for servants, dependants, &c., common to Oriental
houses, which separated Lady Hester's private apart-
ments from the remainder of the building.

" In the garden was Lady Hester's tomb, in a rather
ruinous condition, but with no inscription whatever
upon it. We had thought of having some inscription
placed thereon, but with no means of preserving it,
and the recollection that Lady Hester herself had, I
believe, particularly desired that no permanent
memorial should be erected, we abandoned the idea.
Mr. Moore, the Consul who buried her, was then still
alive — a very old man — in London ; but he was unable
to give any further particulars beyond those contained
in the letter to my grandfather, which you possess.
The disposition of gardens and terraces was more
easily distinguishable than now, when the plough has
been at work among them. We understand that the
monastery to which the house and property belonged
were anxious to sell them, and, indeed, overtures were
made to us to buy them. No more beautiful position
for a winter resort could be well imagined, but the
inaccessible position and the great distance from
England rendered such a proposal impossible to be
entertained."

I am the only other member of the family who has
made the pilgrimage to Djoun ; it was in the winter of
1895. I had been cruising in the Levant in a small

1895] MY PILGRIMAGE TO DJOUN 451

steam yacht, with my nephew and niece and Mr.
George Leveson-Gower for shipmates, and before
leaving Beyrout for Cyprus we settled to spend a day
at Sidon, and see Lady Hester's house. I will here
transcribe a few pages of my journal, giving an account
of our visit :

Wednesday, December 4. — To-day has been per-
fectly delightful. I am beginning to feel a little
conceited about our persistent luck in fine weather,
and to believe that in this respect, if in no other, I
resemble the Queen. After yesterday's rain and wind,
we had a hot, cloudless summer's day, and a smooth
sea, though there was the inevitable ground swell,
which, Ina complains, is spoken of as ' only a ground
swell,' and yet makes us roll so merrily. We left
Beyrout in such good time that we accomplished our
voyage of three hours to Saida before breakfast time,
and were immediately boarded by the Consul, Dr.
Abela, bringing me an enormous bouquet of roses,
chrysanthemums, and jonquils from his garden; the
season for jonquils, he said, was just beginning. The
Consul-General at Beyrout had apprised him of our
coming, and he had horses ready for Philip, Ina, and
George, and a litter for me1 — a most comfortable con-
trivance. It was a chair mounted on poles, sheltered
with curtains and an awning, and provided with
cushions and a footboard. The whole population of
Saida turned out to see us land, as European visitors
are few and far between ; and while the others were
having their English saddles put on their horses, and
mounting, I sat in my chair, surrounded by a gaping
crowd, like a wild beast in its cage. I flatter myself
no wild beast could have excited greater interest, or
given more general satisfaction. At length, four
stalwart porters lifted the poles, and we were off.

1 The Duchess was then 76.

452 MY PILGRIMAGE TO DJOUN [CH. x

We entered the little town through a gate built by the
Crusaders — a long vaulted passage — and, passing the
ruins of a mediaeval castle, found ourselves in a quaint,
picturesque street, full of fruit-sellers. Remembering
how sea-sick the poor Pope used to look in his chair
of state at St. Peter's, I had not expected to like my
litter, but I thought the slow swing of the motion
very enjoyable, and at once felt a strong wish to be
carried, in the same way, all over the country, with
a tent to receive me every night.

" The first part of our way lay along the sands of
the sea-shore, which the road to Beyrout follows for
the whole distance ; then we turned inland, among the
gardens and orchards of ' flowery Sidon,' which pro-
duce some of the finest fruit in the world : the
oranges, I am told, are celebrated. Every now and
then came a whiff of scent from a cassia tree. The
track was of rolling stones, like a rough water-course.
We followed the course of the river Anwali, which
irrigates all this little plain, crossed it on a bridge said
to date from the Roman times, and at once began the
ascent of the mountains. They are all rocks and
brushwood, at this season quite brown, though the
last rains have brought out patches of bright green,
and in another fortnight there will be verdure every-
where. But they are beautiful even now, rising tier
above tier in endless variety, grouping themselves
anew at each turn of the road, and clear cut against
the blue sky. The sun was very hot, and the ' road '
ill-deserved the name : it more resembled a wild goat's
path, clambering over great boulders of rock ; but the
horses climbed like cats. Our cavalcade consisted,
besides ourselves, of the Consul, the Consul's son,
who had kindly offered to photograph us at Djoun,
his kawass, a guide carrying our luncheon, and two

1895] DJOUN IN 1895 453

men with guns, whom I believed to be our escort, till
I was told they were villagers returning home. The
country seemed very lonely : we met only an occasional
shepherd or goat herd.

" At last, turning a shoulder of the mountain, we
came in sight of Djoun (now spelt ' Jun '), built on
a steep slope, overlooking a beautiful little valley
watered by the Anwali, full of gardens and olive
groves, some of them containing very fine trees.
The houses are well built, of white stone, and it is,
the Consul says, a thriving place, that has doubled its
population since Lady Hester's time. Thence a wild
clamber, over very rough ground, led us up the
mountain on which stood her house. When Philip
was here, fifteen years ago, it was already a complete
ruin, but the garden remained, allowed to run wild,
with some flowers still lingering on the terraces.
Now, alas ! garden and terraces alike have disappeared ;
the ground has been let to a farmer, ploughed up, and
planted with mulberries. Only some of the olives and
orange trees that she planted are left, and the exact
place of her burial cannot be determined, as nothing
remains of the vault.1 Dr. Abela brought us an old man
who had been in her service as a boy, and was four-
teen at the time of her death, who pointed out where
he thought her grave had been, and showed us the
point on (what had been) the upper terrace, where she
used to stand and watch through her field-glass the
ships passing on the distant sea — with what feeling,
who can say ? Did she never wish herself on board,

1 In the course of excavations undertaken in 1912 by the Superior-
General of the Greek Catholic Convent of " St. Sauveur " at Djoun
the skeleton of Lady Hester was discovered, enclosed in a coffin of
hard thick wood still in a fair state of preservation. The Superior-
General has caused a tombstone to be placed over the carefully built
in-grave in which Lady Hester, according to her instructions, had
been buried.

454 DJOUN IN 1895 [CH. x

with all sails set, spreading her wings for flight ? We
cannot tell ; we can scarcely even picture her to our
selves in such changed surroundings, for everything-
that was here in her time is gone. Her arbours and
trellises, her alleys and fountains, her alcoves and
terraces, have all disappeared ; her groves of myrtles
and bay trees are cut down, and every flower she
planted rooted up. Yet we can at least stand in the
same place where she stood, and look out on the same
view — and what a view it is ! The situation of Djoun
is simply magnificent, overlooking, from its isolated
mountain top, the whole country round, far and near,
with the luxuriant valley traversed by the Anwali,
and all its groves and gardens, nestling at its foot.
On every side except one it is surrounded by the
towering crests of the Lebanon ; but to the west a
wide opening, like a great portal, discloses the
glorious expanse of the Mediterranean, and frames in
its broad mirror of dazzling blue. The village we
passed through lies on the left below; and on the
right another smaller hamlet, Mejduleneh, is perched
high up on the mountain-side. Lady Hester's private
garden fronted this wonderful view, and almost the
only corner of the building left standing, the south-
west angle, which contained her own rooms, looks out
upon it. From them a door opened through which,
at any moment, she could wander out among the
flowers she loved so well. Close by, in the garden
wall, we were shown another private door, similar
to those used in harems, which enabled her to
communicate secretly with the outer world. At a
given signal the messenger she expected could be
admitted, and dismissed again without any of the
household being the wiser. Even the doctor seems
to have known nothing of this mysterious door,

1895] DJOUN IN 1895 455

as he never mentions it in his description of
the building.

" Djoun must have been a large place, for the garden
wall, still existing, encloses a considerable extent of
ground. It was all built of the white stone of
the country, which remains as fresh and clean as when
it left the quarry. There is now no possibility of
tracing the disposition of the rooms, and the farmer
has added a building to lodge himself and his family.
A mat was spread on the ground for us, under one of
Lady Hester's great orange trees, now loaded with
fruit, and there we ate our luncheon x and were photo-
graphed by the Consul's son. ' How wonderful,' I
said to him, ' it is to us to be sitting here, in the warm
shade, resting from the heat, in December ! ' ' This is
the weather we generally have in December,' he
replied ; ' only in January it begins to be a little cold,
and even then the glass never falls below forty.' I
was particularly struck with the mountain air ; it was
delicious to breathe, bright and inspiring, and yet soft
and caressing as ' the south wind that woos,' and I
recalled the doctor's dictum, that if Lady Hester
latterly had lived more out of doors, the balmy air of
Syria would have kept her in good health. We had
to hurry away, for we had been three hours in coming,
and should be nearly as long in returning, so it was
important not to be on the mountains after dark,
lest the men should lose their way. I walked down,
by a path now impassable for my litter, but which, in
Lady Hester's time, had been a well-kept road. On
the mountain-side is a spring of excellent water, that
supplied her house, and a growth of thyme and other

1 Five knives and four forks disappeared from our luncheon basket
during this picnic. The predatory instinct has not died out in
Syria.

456 CONCLUSION [CH. x

strongly aromatic herbs, whose names I do not know.
The journey back showed the mountains to even
greater advantage, for the westering sun threw long
shadows, bringing out every fold and detail in their
structure, and purpling them with the glorious
evening colouring of the East. When we reached the
sea-shore, it had set in a flood of crimson light, and
we journeyed on in the warm twilight, the stars coming
out one by one, so close to the rippling waves, that
my bearer's feet were washed by the surf. I have
never enjoyed anything more than this day's expedi-
tion. I have always wished to see Djoun, and I think
it has even surpassed my expectations. No doubt it
is a most beautiful, in some respects a unique place,
but still I could not have lived there, remote from the
civilised world.

"We got back on board by six o'clock and sailed
immediately, the Consul presenting us with a most mag-
nificent bunch of bananas from his garden as a parting
gift. He is of Maltese extraction (descended, if you
please, ' as his name imports, from Abel the son of
Adam '), but his family has been long settled in Syria,
and his father was Consul here before him, and
remembered Lady Hester well. The wonderful
Greek sarcophagi now at Constantinople were dis-
covered within a few yards of his own garden, quite
by accident. But what was the use of digging ? The
Government appropriated whatever was found. He
told us that at the cost of not more that £30,000,
Saida might obtain a very good harbour ; at present
there is none, ships lie under the lee of an island,
which, in old times, was connected with the shore
by a breakwater."

Here end my experiences of Djoun, and here, too,

1897] CONCLUSION 457

ends all I have to tell of my poor aunt Hester. I
never saw her ; she left England nine years before
I was born, and our homes were three thousand miles
asunder. Even had the opportunity offered, I greatly
fear she might not have consented to receive me.
But I have always felt a strong interest in her striking
and original character, warm sympathy in her mis-
fortunes, and deep compassion for her sad fate. She
who had helped and befriended so many, found no
one to stand by her in her sorest need, and died bereft
of all human aid and consolation. Yet who can say
she was deserted and forgotten ? There is one Com-
forter who never fails the afflicted who call upon
Him ; and I may venture to conclude with Manzoni's
beautiful lines on another forlorn death-bed :

II Dio che atterra e suscita,
Che affanna e che consola,
Sulla deserta coltrice
Accanto a lei poso.

INDEX

Abbott, Mr., Consul at Beyrout,

218, 220-223, 225, 432
Abdalla, Pacha of Acre, 146, 173,

194, 223, 224, 238, 240, 269,

290, 337

Abd-el-Rasak, 193
Abela, Mr., Consul, 340, 428
Abercromby, Mr., Speaker of the

House of Commons, 356
Aberdeen, George, third Earl of,

57

Abu Ghosh, 287
A'Court, Mr., 40
Acre, 123, 124, 146, 173, 174, 175,

194, 195, 274, 288, 289, 303, 337
— Pacha of. See Abdalla
Addington, Henry. See Sidmouth,

first Viscount
Adhemar, Count d', 6
Ahmed Bey, 272, 274
Aleppo, 129, 140, 141, 166, 191,

194, 337. 36i, 418
Alexandria, 113, 120, 238, 305
Anderson, General, 76, 77, 8l,

163, 177, 196,434
Anson, Mr., 321
Antioch, 129, 149, 195
Athens, 96, 113
Aubin, Mr., Consul, 219
Awgy, 171, 174, 175
Ayesha, 386

Baalbec, 171, 175
Bagdad, 149, 159
Baillie, Charles, 22, 28
Baillie, Dr., 69
Baillie, George, 28
Bankes, William, 187, 206
Banks, Lady, 242, 255
Banks, Sir J., 20, 242
Barker, Mr., Consul-General, 136,
139-141, 148, 170, 179, 195, 219
Barnard, General, 346
Barrie, Captain, 102

Bath, 18, 19, 32, 36, 58, 69, 84

Bathurst, Henry, third Earl, 174

Beauclerk, Lady D., 43

Beaufort, Captain, 144

Bedford, Duke of, 243, 443

Belvedere, 43

Bentinck, Lord Frederick, 250

Berlin, 30, 39, 43, 44, 68

Beshy'r, Emir, 171, 178, 212, 216,
223, 234, 237, 238, 240, 349-253,
316, 341, 377, 385, 398,408, 409

Beshyr, Sheick, 148, 237, 240

Bethlehem, 123

Beyrout, 218, 222, 225, 232, 261,
288, 291-293, 318, 325, 340,
344. 345. 36i, 366, 390, 427,
440,449,451

Binning, Thomas, afterwards
ninth Earl of Haddington, 5, 28

Boconnoc, 161

Bonaparte, General, 58, 105, 184,
287, 296, 302, 313

Bontin, Colonel, 194, 195, 200

Bosrah, 150

Bosville, Colonel, 45

Brandenburg-Baireuth, Margra-
vine of, 13, 26

Breyer, Professor, 13, 25

Brisbane, Captain, 96

Brooke, Henry Richard Greville,
Lord, afterwards third Earl of
Warwick, 40

Brothers, Richard, 206, 209

Brown, Captain, 415

Bruce, Michael, 94, 95, 97, 98,
in, 112, 119, 123, 124, 136,
139-141, 151, 154, 163-167, 176,
180, 182, 197, 200, 376

Brusa, 105, in, 112, 120, 209

Buckingham, George, first Mar-
quis, afterwards Duke of, ai,
183, 245, 290, 368

Buckingham, J. Silk, 187

Travels among the A rab

Tribes, 187-193

459

460

INDEX

Builth, 84. 85

Burckhardt, John L., 124, 151,

158. 205
Burdett, Sir Francis, 12, 22, 27,

338. 352, 361, 362, 403, 443
his letter to Lord Stanhope,

435

Burdett, William J., 22
Burrard, Sir Henry, 74, 77
Burton Pynsent, 12, 18, 19, 21-

26, 31, 32,47. 310
Buseck, Baron de, 292, 393, 397,

406, 408

Bute, John, second Marquis of, 94
Bute, Marchioness of, 94
Byron, Lord, 96, 305

Cairo, 121-124, 145, 151

Calais, 247

Camden, John Jeffreys, second

Earl, 51
Camelford, Lord, 32, 59, 290, 344,

405
Campbell, Colonel, Consul-General

for Syria, 341-345, 347, 354,

360, 363, 399, 400, 402
his letter to Lady Hester,

343-345

Campbell, General, 94
Campbell, Lady, 20
Canning, George, 49, 59, 72, 82,

83, 108, 133, 161, 177. 245
Canning, Stratford, afterwards

Viscount Stratford de Red-

cliffe, 97, 98, 105-110, 251
Canning, Stratford, Life of, 6, 97-

99, 108

Caramania, 163, 275
Carmel, Mount, 123
Carrington, Lady, 51, 53
Carrington, Robert, first Lord, 5 1 ,

53. "3

Castlereagh, Robert, Viscount,
afterwards second Marquis of
Londonderry, 61, 63, 82, 83, 98
Cavendish, Lady George, 58
Cavendish, Lord George, 58
Charlotte, Queen, 10, 30
Chasseaud, M., 266, 273, 308-310
Chatham, Countess of, grand-
mother of Lady Hester Stan-
hope, 12, 16, 23, 36, 47, 295
Chatham, Countess of, aunt to

Lady Hester Stanhope, 52
Chatham, first Earl of, grand-
father of Lady Hester Stanhope,
i, 294, 346, 441, 442

Chatham, second Earl of, uncle
to Lady Hester Stanhope, 14,
32, 47. 52, 72, 113, 235-237

Chesterfield, Lord, 361

Chevening, 2, 3, 7, II, 12, 13, 14,
17, 20, 31, 34, 118, 206, 435

Cholmondeley , 113

Cleveland, Duchess of, 451

Clinton, General, 90, 103

Colborne, Major, 77

Colburn's New Monthly Magazine,

95. 438
Constantinople, 96-103, no, 112,

114, 140, 144, 150, 194, 289,

296, 337, 377
Corinth, 96

Coutts, Thomas, 115, 184, 207
Cowper, Peter L. L. F. N., fifth

Earl, 38

Crescent and the Cross, The, 447
Crete, 247
Cullen, Charles, 18
Cyprus, 238, 325, 412, 440

Dalton, Mr., 35, 55

Damascus, 126, 127, 141, 145, 146,

148, 150, 151, 166, 179, 190-

196, 240, 274, 297, 337

— Pacha of, 146, 173, 193, 194,
196, 238, 239, 272

Dartford Lodge, 43
David, Mrs., 226
Davidson, Mr., 259, 260
Dayr, son-in-law of Mohanna-el-
Fadel, 376-378

— his letter to Lady Hester, 377-
378

Dayr-el-Kamar, 124, 125, 126

Dayr Mkhalla, 392, 393

Dedem, Baron, Batavian Minister
at Stuttgard, 44

Delaborde, Count, 323

Diary of a Lady of Quality, 261

Didot, M., 73, 197

Notes d'un Voyage fait dans le

Levant, 197

Djoun, 125, 207, 208, 227, 228.
232-236, 241, 243, 247, 249,
255, 259. 274. 275, 276, 288,
291, 310- 3J9. 323. 346-361,
366, 370, 376, 384, 397, 412, 427,
430, 434, 440, 444, 448, 449

Douglas, Sir Charles, 40

Douglas, Frederick, 112

Dover Castle, 39, 57

Dropmore, 161

Drummond, Mr., 39, 40, 41

INDEX

461

Dundas, General Sir David, 52,

134, 153, 181, 201
Dundas, Lady Jane, 28
Dundas, Mr., 323, 415

Ebrington, Hugh, Viscount, after-
wards second Earl Fortescue,
94, 113, 122, 139, 150, 162

Egerton, Mr. and. Mrs., 29, 36, 37,
40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 55

Eliot, Harriet, 16, 43, 47

Ellis, Charles, 59

Elwes, Mr., 24

Entin, 45

Erlang, 13, 23, 43

Erode, Dr. d',427

Farquhar, Sir W., 65, 390
Fatoom, 258, 266, 273, 323, 335-

337. 412, 426
Fazakerley, Mr., 209
Fergusson, Mr., 58
Feriat, Baroness de, 314, 317, 318
Fernandez, Mr., 94, 144, 147
Fernandez, Mrs., 94, 144-147,

163, 187

Fitzgerald, Colonel, 18
Florence, 41, 178
Forester, Lady Katherine, 58
Forster, Captain, 170, 171
Foster, Mr., 321, 322, 437
Fox, Charles James, 352, 355, 356,

363. 413

Fry, Anne, 94, 115, 121, 154, 170,
209

" Gaiety, Count," 397, 408

Gaza, 122

Genoa, 255

George III., 10, 30

George, Prince of Wales, after-
wards George IV., 28

Gerardin, M., 257

Gibraltar, 94, 178

Glastonbury, Lord, 12, 16, 24

Glen Irfon, 86-89, 92

Gordon, Colonel, 58, 143, 157

Graham, Colonel, 76

Grantham, Lord, 40

Granville, Granville Leveson-
Gower, first Earl, 65, 68, 72, 73,
78, 82, 161, 162

Granville, Mrs., 14

Grenville, General, 205, 229, 231

Grey, Lord, 8

Guys, M., French Consul at Bey-
rout, 312, 324-325, 343-345,
361, 367, 409, 418, 419

his letter to Lady Hester,

418

Haddington, Charles, eighth Earl
of, i, 15, 16

his letter to Lady Hester, 1 5

Haddington, Countess of, 39

Haddington, Thomas, seventh
Earl of, 1 5

Haifa, 123, 209

Hamar, 141, 143, 144, 147, 148,
156, 157, 164, 173, 191, 194,
288, 313

Hamilton, Mr., 219

Hardinge, Captain, 76

Hardwicke, Charles Philip, fourth
Earl of, 288, 313, 338, 344, 405,
423-425. See also Yorke, Cap-
tain

Harrowby, Nathaniel, second
Baron, afterwards first Earl, 68,
70

Hassan Effendi, 272, 274

Hastings, 7

Hawkesbury, Lord, 72, 133

Hawley, Sir H., 20

Hazetta, Colonel, 407

Hillier, William, 118

Holland, Lord, 352, 355, 356

Horns, 148, 191, 288

Homsy, M., money-lender, 341

Hope, Alex, 57, 77

Hope, Captain Henry, 120, 125,

130, 153

Hope, Thomas, 41
Howden, Lord, 226
Hutchinson, Captain, 182

Ibrahim Pacha, 274, 288, 290,
302, 303, 334, 3Si, 378, 4o8-
410

Ishmael Bey, 123, 132, 151, 167

Ismael, Mulla, 143

Jackson, T. J., 12, 13, 16, 30

Jackson, Mrs. T. J., 59

Jaffa, 122, 175

Jenesson, Count, 43

Jerusalem, 123

Jones, Betsy, 84, 85, 89
! Jones, Sir H., 102
| Joyce, Rev. J., tutor to Lady
i Hester's brothers, n

462

INDEX

Kensington (William Edwardes),

second Baron, 85, 385
Kent, Duchess of, 349
Kent, Duke of, 346
Kilmorey, Francis J., second

Earl of, 312, 405, 443
King, Captain Hon. John, 94
Kinglake, A. W., 291-311, 376

Eothen, 291-311

Knight, Mr., 132, 209
Knox, Mr. 321, 437

Lamartine, Alphonse de, 240,
274-289, 306, 307, 310, 312,
314, 364, 369, 381-383

his letter to Lady Hester,

275

Voyage en Orient, 278, 381

Lamb, Sir Frederic, afterwards

third Viscount Melbourne, 336
Land and the Book, The, 433, 449
Lansdowne, Francis Thomas,

third Earl of, 1 8
Laove, Dr., 398
Lascaris, M., 312
Latakia, 159, 166, 167, 194
Latour-Maubourg, M., 105, 106,

107, 109, 112
Laurello, Mr., Austrian Consul at

Beyrout, 218, 221. 225
Lavallette, M., 95, 98. 182
Leghorn, 41, 178, 247, 250, 274
Leveson-Gower, George, 451
Leveson-Gower, Lord Granville.

See Granville, first Earl
Lincoln, Bishop of, 72
Liston, Sir Robert, 170, 173
Liverpool, Robert Bankes, second

Earl of, 6 1, 63
Logmagi, Hassan, Lady Hester's

steward, 336, 337, 393, 412, 421
Louis XVIII., 182, 183
Loustaneau, " General," 209, 319,

429

Lubeck, 44
Lunardi, Dr., 274, 275, 291, 293,

308. 315, 426
Lyons, 39
Lyttelton, Lord, 26

Mahadini Effendi, 150

Mahon, Charles, Viscount. See
Stanhope, third Earl

Mahon, Philip Henry, Viscount,
half-brother of Lady Hester and
afterwards fourth Earl Stan-

hope, 11-21, 23, 25-29, 31, 32,

36-39,41,42, 50, 53, 54, 57,66,
67,72,118,161. SeeStanhope,
Philip Henry, fourth Earl

Mahon, Viscountess (Catherine
Smith), sister-in-law to Lady
Hester Stanhope, 57, 66, 67

Mahon, Viscountess (Hester Pitt),
mother of Lady Hester Stan-
hope, 1,15

Mahon, Viscountess (Louisa Gren-
ville), step-mother to Lady
Hester Stanhope, 1,2. See also
Stanhope, Countess

Maitland, General, 177

Malta, 94, 95, 139, 144, 147, 163,
180, 187, 225

Mar Antonius, 171, 172

Mar Elias, 169, 170, 172-174, 179,
182, 187, 193, 196, 197, 207,
319, 323, 446

Margam, 90, 91

Marmora, 120

Marseilles, 261, 337

Mary, Princess, 30

Maubourg, M. See Latour-Mau-
bourg

Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria,

394-397

Mecca, 159, 202

Meryon, Dr., 6, 93, 94, 98, 101,
102, 112, 119, 120, 143, 147,
154, 169, 171, 172, 181, 188,
193. J96, 201, 204, 205, 207-
209, 228-231, 239, 247, 250,
259, 261, 262, 272, 273, 274,
313. 3i8. 337-340, 347, 349.
355. 362, 365, 368, 370. 371,
377. 38i, 385. 387-390, 392-
395. 403, 405, 406, 411, 413,
436-440

his letter to Lady Hester,

406-407

to Lord Stanhope, 437

Meryon, Mrs., 228, 248, 256, 261,
262, 272, 273, 318, 319, 323,
325. 340, 411

Methuen, Mr., 26

Metta, 210

Mills, Dr., 323, 415

Miranda, General, 434

Mishmushy. 171, 223

Misset, Colonel, 120, 177

Mohammed Ali, 169, 250, 290,
304. 341. 351

Mobanna-el-Fadel, 135, 141, 148,
149, 151, 152, 156, 187, 193,
312, 376, 377

INDEX

463

Montague, Lord, 40

Mont Cenis, 38

Moore, GeneralSir John, 57, 62,67,

72-84, 91, 98, 99, 198, 200, 430
his letters to Lady Hester,

74, 76

Moore, Sir John, Life of, 76, 91
Moore, Mr., Consul at Beyrout,

340, 343, 345, 353, 426, 447, 450
his letter to Lord Stanhope,

recounting the circumstances

of Lady Hester's death, 427-

429

Mfiosa, 257

Mulgrave, Henry, third Baron, 1 77
Mulgrave, Lord, Letters, 46
Murray, J., Captain R.N., 35
Murray, Mr., Lady Hester's

lawyer, 230, 434
Mustafa, an old barber, 334, 335,

412
Mustafa Aga Berber, 194, 195

Napier, Sir WilJiam, 49, 81, 416

his Life, quoted, 60-64

his letter to The Times, 416-

418

Naples, 39
Nasar, son of Mohanna-el-Fadel,

164, 187, 193, 376
Nash, nurse at Chevening, 1 18
Nazareth, 124, 151
Neale, Lady, 41

Needham, Colonel, 312, 405, 443
Nelson, Horatio, Viscount, 26
Norman, Mr., 118
North, Francis, afterwards fourth

Earl of Guilford, 112, 125, 129
Nugent, Lord, 415

Oakes, General Sir Hildebrand,
94, 95, 109, 119, 121, 125, 132,
163, 438

Ouseley, Sir Gore, 329

Paget, Lord, 77, 152
Palmerston, Lord, 342, 348, 350,

353. 354, 399, 413. 4*5. 4*6,

417. 444
his letter to Lady Hester,

399

Palmyra, 128, 134, 136, 139, 149,
I5I. 153-161, 163-166, 168,
187, 199, 200, 297, 312, 376, 377

Paris, 261

Parseval, Amedee de, 276, 285

Patras, 96

Pearce, Mr., 95, 98, 119, 122

Pechell, Captain, 323

Perceval, Spencer, 100

Percy, Algernon, 40

Perini, Paolo, 266

Perry, Captain, 77

Phipps, General, 99

Pisa, 247, 256, 259

Pisani, Mr., 100, 107

Pitt, Lady Harriet, aunt of Lady
Hester, 16

Pitt, William, uncle to Lady
Hester Stanhope, i, 8, 10, n,
17, 27, 28, 36-39, 47-51. 53-71.
79, 80, 86, 91, 98, 99, 161, 162,
176, 177, 198, 249, 286, 295,
312, 326-328. 346, 352, 353,
355, 356, 364. 390, 418, 442, 443

Pitt, William, Life of, by Earl
Stanhope, 48

Plymouth, Lord, 101

Porte, Count de la, 323

Portsmouth, 94

Price, Mrs., of Glen Irfon, 86-88,
92

Price, Rev. Rice, 86

Price, Rev. Thomas, 49, 84, 85,

385
Prince of the Mountain, the, 124,

130, 208, 240, 241
Puckler Muskau, Prince, 362-389,

399
his letter to Lady Hester,

364-365
Briefe eines Verstorbenen,

363
Putney, 60-64

Ramleh, 123
Reichstadt, Duke of, 217
Reynolds, Dr., 69
Rhodes, no, 114-117, 198
Rice, Mr., 327, 328
Richelieu, Due de, 323
Richmond, Charles, fourth Duke

of, 87, 434

Richmond, Duchess of, 434
Rome, 247
Romney, Lord, 9, 10
Rosetta, 121, 122
Rutland, Duchess of, 1 10

Saada, 335~337

St. Asaph, Lord, 323

Sarell, Mr., 224, 225

464

INDEX

Sayda, 148, 170-172, 179, 188,
196, 198, 218, 220, 222, 226,
227, 232, 233, 239, 250, 255, 274,
288,292,315,318,319,334,335,
340, 362, 366, 392-394. 398,
402 , 41 2, 43 1 , 440, 444, 449, 45 1

Scio, 119

Shadwell, Colonel, 9

Sheridan, R. B., 94

Sheriff Pacha, 351

Shibly-el-Arrian, 410

Sicily, 93

Sidmouth, Henry Addington, first
Viscount, 49, 65, 328

Sidon. See Sayda

Sligo, Howe Peter, second
Marquis of , 94-97, 104, 1 10, 1 1 1 ,
151, 177, 196

Smith, Catherine, daughter of
first Lord Carrington, after- |
wards Viscountess Mahon, 51,
53. See Viscountess Mahon

Smith, Charlotte, daughter of
first Lord Carrington, after-
wards wife of Alan, Lord
Gardner, 53

Smith, Lady Ann, 18

Smith, Sir Sidney, 178, 218,
220, 245, 296

his letter to Lady Hester,

178

Smith, Thurlow, 178

Smyrna, 120, 144, 166

Somerset, Lord A., 90

Spencer, William, 43

Stafford, Lady, 59, 68

Stanhope, Charles, third Earl,
father of Lady Hester, 1-4, 8,
9,12.16,17,18,21,53,206,328 j

Stanhope, Charles, half-brother of
Lady Hester, u, 20, 21, 31-34, i
51, 54, 55, 60, 62, 67, 72-75. 79-
82, 84, 161, 207, 346, 418, 434

Stanhope, Dowager Viscountess,
grandmother of Lady Hester,
15, 20

Stanhope, James, half-brother of
Lady Hester, n, 21, 31, 33, 57,
62, 67, 69, 72, 73, 77, 84, 89, 90, |
91, 92, 94, 100, 143, 161, 176, i
182,185,186,203,207,231,237, \
241, 242, 418, 434

Stanhope, Lady Griselda, after-
wards Mrs. Tekell, sister to
Lady Hester, 5, 8, n, 12, 72, 73,
241, 328

Stanhope, Lady Hester, her
parentage, i ; her character, 4, •

5 ; her early life and gover-
nesses, 5-9 ; at trial of Warren
Hastings, 8 ; talks philosophy
with her father, a fine horse-
woman, 9 ; dines with the King
at Lord Romney's, 10 ; goes to
live with Lady Chatham at
Burton Pynsent, plans her
eldest brother's escape from
Chevening, 12-14 ', her care for
her younger brothers, 16 ; at
Bath, 18, 19; rumours of her
engagements, marriages, and
elopement, 26 ; a visit to the
Continent proposed, 29 ; a
visit to Weymouth, 30 ; visits
the Continent with Mr. and
Mrs. Egerton, 36-46 ; on her
way visits Mr. Pitt at Walmer
Castle, writes from Turin, 37 ;
Naples, 39 ; Tonningen, 42 ;
Florence, 41 ; Stuttgard, Lii-
beck, 44 ; Entin, 45 ; return
to England, Lady Chatham
having died she makes her home
with Mr. Pitt, 47 ; Earl Stan-
hope's description of her in The
Life of Pitt, 48 ; her recollec-
tions in later years of these
days, 48, 49 ; opinions of her
beauty, 49 ; her personal ap-
pearance, 50 ; her expectation
of a French invasion, 52, 55, 56 ;
Sir W. Napier's account of her
life with Pitt at Putney, 60-64 ;
at Pitt's death goes to Lord
Harrington's, 71 ; at Pitt's
dying request is granted by
Parliament a pension of £1,200,
removes to a house in Montagu
Square, unfriendly with most
of her relatives, her engage-
ment to Sir John Moore re-
ported, 72 ; at Builth, 84 ; her
fancied likeness to William Pitt,
86 ; arranges to take rooms at
Glen Irfon, 86-89 ; decides to
give up her house in London
and go abroad, 92 ; leaves
England, contemplating a re-
turn, 93 ; embarks at Ports-
mouth for Gibraltar and thence
to Malta, 94 ; leaves Malta, 95,
for Zante, Patras, Corinth, and
Athens, 96 ; Constantinople,
97 ; Therapia, 97, 98 ; quarrels
with S. Canning, 105, 106 ; the
quarrel made up, 1 10 ; dis-

INDEX

465

appointed in her hopes of going
to France and Italy, 112; de-
cides to go to Egypt, 113 ; on
the voyage to Alexandria is
shipwrecked at Rhodes, 114;
her description of the ship-
wreck, 115, 116, and of her
costume, 117; inquiries about
her old nurse, 118; conveyed
by the Salsette frigate from
Rhodes to Alexandria, 120 ; the
journey to Cairo and hospitality
of the Pacha, 121 ; sends
Arab chargers to Duke of York
and Lord Ebrington, she is in
danger of drowning in a leaking
boat, at Jaffa commences her
travels through Syria and the
Holy Land on horseback, 122 ;
at Jerusalem, 123 ; at Dayr-el-
Kamar, 125, i26,andDamascus,
127; Palmyra, 128-141 ; Aleppo,
Antioch, 129; her visit to
General Dundas, 135 ; the visit
to Palmyra postponed, 136,
139 ; removes to Hamar, 141 ;
spends a week in the desert in
the Arabs' encampment, 141-
142 ; describes her costume,
144-145 ; her departure for
Palmyra, 153 ; her accounts of
the expedition, 154-161 ; Mr.
Bruce's account of a disagree-
able incident on the journey,
163-164; takes a house at
Latakia for the summer, 166 ;
rents the convent Mar Elias,
seized with the plague, 169 ;
authorised by the Sultan to
search for treasure at Ascalon,
Awgy, and Sidon, 170, 171 ;
visits Baalbec, 171; a dinner at
Mar Antonius, 171, 172 ; search
for treasure, at Ascalon, 173,
1 74 ; at Awgy, 1 74 ; her poli-
tical opinions, 184-186; Silk
Buckingham's description of her
and her life at Mar Elias, 188-
190 ; a Druse woman's account
of her, 190-192 ; her benevolence
and influence, 193 ; she pro-
cures the punishment of the
murderers of the French Colonel
Bontin, 194, and is thanked
by the Chamber of Deputies,
195 ; never free from debt for
the last twenty-three years of
her life, 196 ; M. Didot's ac-

count of an interview with her,
198-200 ; loses her father, 206;
removes from Mar Elias to
Djoun, 207, and remains
there for the rest of her life,
208 ; her belief in Brothers'
prophecy of her Oriental king-
dom, 209-21 1 ; other prophecies
to the same effect, 209, 210 ;
her religious beliefs, 212; the
account of her in Memoirs of a
Babylonian Princess, 213—217 ;
she drops all her English corre-
spondents, 217 ; her opinion of
the local consuls, 218-222, and
of missionaries, 222, 223 ; her
loan to Abdalla Pacha, 223-
225 ; chastises Dr. Wolff's mes-
senger, 227 ; Captain Yorke's
account of a visit to her, 232-
237 ; her account of the revolu-
tion on the Lebanon, 237-240
loss of her brother James, 241
her monetary troubles, 242 ,
she wants Scotch servants sent
out to her, she is duped by an
impostor, 243, 244 ; she refuses
assistance from friends in Eng-
land, 245 ; her failing sight,
246, 252; instructions how to
select servants for her, 246-247 ;
her servants threatened, 249 ;
she is in fear of her life, 250,
251 ; supports refugees at
Djoun at the time of the battle
of Navarino, at the death of
Lady Banks comes into pos-
session of an annuity left by her
brother James, 255 ; her loss in
the death of Miss Williams, 257-
259; her servants' neglect of her
during Miss Williams' illness,
258, 259 ; Mr. Davidson's ac-
count of her and an imaginary
visit to Persia, 260, 261 ; Dr.
Meryon's description of her
home and life on his return,
262-271; she quarrels with Dr.
Meryon, 272, 273 ; a letter from
Lamartine to her, 275 ; his ac-
count of a visit to her, 276-287 ;
Kinglake's account of a visit to
her, 291-31 1 ; she is falsely in-
formed she has inherited an
estate in Ireland, 311, 312 ; she
denies the truth of much that
Lamartine had written about
her, 312, 313 ; Dr. Meryon's

466

INDEX

account of her health, 320 ;
often did not see visitors on
account of her health, 3 21, and
lack of means, 322 ; some of the
visitors whom she received,

323 ; her ideas of a domestic life,

324 ; her pleasure in hearing
Dr. Meryon read, 326 ; in-
stances of her untrustworthy
memory, 327, 328 ; is presented
with History of the Temple at
Jerusalembythe Oriental Trans-
lation Fund Society, 328-329 ;
her false etymologies, 329-333 ;
she shelters the brothers of two
of her maids from the conscrip-
tion, 334-337 ; her anxiety to
hear more of the promised Irish
estate, 338 ; her enfeebled state,
338 ; the disorder of her bed-
room through her long confine-
ment to it, 339 ; she is pressed
by a money-lender for pay-
ment of a loan, 340-345 ; her
pension confiscated, 343 ; her
feelings outraged by this action,
346, 347 ; her letters on the
subject, 347-361 ; improve-
ment in her health and a visit
from Prince Piickler Muskau,
364-389 ; his description of her
appearance and dress, 371 , 372 ;
her conversation on astrology,
373-375 ; another account of
her adventures in the desert,
376-378 ; her mares, 379, 380 ;
her idea of the Eastern origins
of European nations, 383 ; her
garden by moonlight, 384 ; her
tale of the serpent's cave, 387,
388 ; she sends supplies to some
Germans in quarantine, who
turn out to be a royal duke
and his suite, 392 ; she invites
the Duke of Bavaria to stay
with her, 396 ; but is taken ill
and is unable to receive him,
397 ; her anxiety that her corre-
spondence about her pension
should be published, 399 ; she
receives Sir F. Burdett's answer
to her letter about the Irish
estate, she dismisses Dr. Mer-
yon, 403 ; the Irish bequest a
hoax, 404 ; now Dr. Meryon
has left she has no one speaking
English, 411; asks Lord Hard-
wicke to sell her pension, 414; the

publication of her correspond-
ence did not help her, 416 ; Lord
Hardwicke tells her it is im-
possible to sell her pension
whilst she is out of England,
but she will not return, 42 5 ; her
lonely death, 426 ; Mr. Moore's
letter to Lord Stanhope re-
lating the circumstances of her
death, 427-429 ; the account of
the funeral and of what he had
learnt of her by Rev. W. M.
Thomson, 429-433 ; her will,
433. 434 I The Quarterly Review
notice of Dr. Meryon's Memoirs
of Lady Hester, 440-444 ; War-
burton's account of a visit to
Djoun, 444-447 ; Lord Wear-
dale's account of a pilgrimage
to his great aunt's grave, 449-
^50; the Duchess of Cleveland's
account of her later visit, 451-
456

Stanhope, Lady Hester :

— Her Letters —

to Mr. Abercromby, 356-

357

to W. D. Adams, 65, 71

to General Anderson, 1 96-

197

to Sir Joseph Banks, 203

to Lord Bathurst, 1 74

to the Marquis of Bucking-
ham, 183-186

to Sir Francis Burdett, 404-

405

to Colonel Campbell, 347,

348

to George Canning, 83, 167-

169

to Stratford Canning, 99-

105, no, in, 130-133
to the second Earl of Chat-
ham, 84

to Lord Ebrington, 362, 363

to Mrs. Fernandez, 144-147

to " Count Gaiety," 408-41 1

to Lord Glastonbury, 12-14

to Lord Granville, 78-80

to Mr. Guys, 3 1 2-3 1 3

to Lord Haddington, 15, 39,

50-52

to Lord Hardwicke, 288-

291, 412-415, 420, 426, 427.
See also those to Captain Yorke

to T. J. Jackson, 18-46, 52-

59, 66-68
to A. W. Kinglake, 292

INDEX

467

Stanhope, Lady Hester :
— Her Letters —

to Louis XVIII., 182

to Maximilian, Duke of

Bavaria, 392-397
to Dr. Meryon, 228-231,

239-240, 242-248, 251-253,

255-257, 313-318. 324, 325.

412, 418, 420-422

to Mr. Moore, 348

to Mr. Murray, the family

lawyer, 17-18, 115-119
to General Oakes, 119, 121,

128-130, 134-144, 153, 166,

167, 175, 181, 201

to Sir Gore Ouseley, 329-333

to Lord Palmerston, 400-

402
to Prince Piickler Muskau^

367, 369

to Mr. Rose, 90-92

to Lord Sligo, 127

to Lord Strangford, 218-226

to Sir Edward Sugden, 357-

361

to Queen Victoria, 349

to Mr. Webb, 249-250, 253-

255, 257-259
to the Marquis Wellesley,

106
to the Duke of Wellington,

to Henry Williams Wynne,

147-151, 159-166

to Dr. J. Wolff, 226

to the Duke of York, 202

to Captain Yorke, 237-239,

288-291. See also those to

Lord Hardwicke
to unnamed correspondents,

73, 80-82, 125, 127, 152, 154-

159-390,391
Stanhope, Lady Hester, Memoirs

of, as related by herself to her

Physician, 5, 271, 436-440
Stanhope, Lady Lucy, sister to

Lady Hester, 5, 8, n, 17. 28,

72, 408
Stanhope, Philip, second Earl,

grandfather of Lady Hester, 15,

Stanhope, Philip Henry, fourth
Earl, brother of Lady Hester,
206, 245, 328. 352, 353,434, 436,

437

memorandum drawn up by

him concerning Lady Hester's
pension, 353~355

Stanhope, Philip Henry :

his letter to The Times on

misrepresentations regarding
himself in Dr.Meryon's book,

355

his letter to Lord Hard-
wicke, 416

his letter to Dr. Meryon,

436-438

Stanhope, Philip Henry, after-
wards fifth Earl, nephew to
Lady Hester, 67, 68

Stanhope, Countess (Louisa
Grenville), stepmother of Lady
Hester, 8, 20, 53

Stowe, 161

Strangways, Mr., 321

Stratford de Redcliffe, Viscount.
See Canning, Stratford

Stuttgard, 43, 44

— Electress of, 43, 44

Sugden, Sir Edward, 357-361

Suleiman Pacha, 126, 143, 146, 169,
224, 289

Sussex, Duke of, 243, 415, 443

Sutton, Nassau, 93, 94

Swinburne, Captain, 41 5

Taitbout, M., 148

Talbot, Mr., 91

Tattenbach, Comte de, 365, 379,

386, 396

Taylor, Colonel, 18
Taylor, Mr., 119
Temple, Lord, 434
Thomson, Rev. W. M., 427, 429-

433. 447-449
Tonningen, 42
Tooke, Home, 328
Tripoli, 172, 194, 313
Turin, 37, 39

VandeWeyer, M., 2

Venice, 42

Victoria, Queen, 346-353, 35°.

357.360,368,399.451
Vienna, 43, 178

Wales, Princess of, 59. *95
Walmer Castle, 37- 38. 39. 5o-5»,

65, 67, 98

Warburton, Eliot, 444
Way, Mr., missionary, 270

468

INDEX

Weardale, Lord, 449

Webb, John, Lady Hester's
banker at Leghorn, 248, 256,
257, 259, 274, 437

Wellesley, Richard, first Marquis,
106

Wellington, Arthur, first Duke of,
91, 143, 341-343. 353, 355. 363

Werry, Mr. 238

Weymouth, 30

William, Prince (afterwards
William IV.), 34. 55

Williams, Elizabeth, 84, 93, 94,
163, 187, 196, 209, 221, 226,227,
241-243,251,257, 258,434

Wilsenheim, Count, 406

Wilson, Sir Robert, 182

Wolff, Dr. Joseph, 226, 227, 379

his letter to Lady Hester, 227

Wynn, Henry Williams, after-
wards Sir Henry, 64, no, 112,
119, 122

his letters to his mother,

112, 119, 122

Wynn, Lady (Hester Smith), aunt

to Lady Hester, 1 10
Wynn, Miss, 259
Wynn, Watkin Williams, 113, 150

Yakoub Aga, Consul at Sayda,
218, 220, 221

York, Duchess of, 18

York, Frederick Augustus, Duke
of, 18, 31, 67, 80, 113, 122, 176,
202, 359

Yorke, Captain Charles Philip,
afterwards fourth Earl of Hard-
wicke, 49, 93, 232, 239, 240, 323

his letter to his father, Ad-
miral Yorke, 232-235

his letter to Lord Chatham,

235-237. See also Hardwicke,
fourth Earl of

Zante, 96

Zezefoon, 263, 266, 323, 339, 412,
421

PrinUd by Maxell, Watson 6- Viney, Ld., Londo* and Aylesbury.

1 3 19921

/